Skip to Main Content
HBS Home
  • About
  • Academic Programs
  • Alumni
  • Faculty & Research
  • Baker Library
  • Giving
  • Harvard Business Review
  • Initiatives
  • News
  • Recruit
  • Map / Directions
Faculty & Research
  • Faculty
  • Research
  • Featured Topics
  • Academic Units
  • …→
  • Harvard Business School→
  • Faculty & Research→
Publications
Publications
  • Article
  • Management Science

Product Quality and Entering Through Tying: Experimental Evidence

By: Hyunjin Kim and Michael Luca
  • Format:Print
ShareBar

Abstract

Dominant platform businesses often develop products in adjacent markets to complement their core business. One common approach used to gain traction in these adjacent markets has been to pursue a tying strategy. For example, Microsoft pre-installed Internet Explorer into Windows, and Apple set Apple Maps as the iOS default. Policymakers have raised concerns that dominant platforms may be leveraging their market power to gain traction for lower quality products when they use a tying strategy. In this paper, we empirically explore this question by examining Google’s decision to tie its new reviews product to its search engine. We experimentally vary the reviews displayed above Google’s organic search results to show either exclusively Google reviews (Google’s current tying strategy) or reviews from multiple platforms determined to be the best-performing by Google’s own organic search algorithm. We find that users prefer the version that does not exclude competitor reviews. Furthermore, looking at observational data on user traffic to Yelp from search engines, we find that Google’s exclusion of downstream competitors may have been effective. The share of Yelp’s traffic coming from Google has declined over this period, relative to traffic from Bing and Yahoo (which do not exclude other companies’ reviews), and Google reviews has grown quicker than Yelp and TripAdvisor during the period in which they excluded these (and other) reviews providers. Overall, these results shed light on platform strategy: tying has the potential to facilitate entry in complementary markets, even when the tied product is of worse quality than competitors.

Keywords

Tying; Platform Strategy; Google; Product; Quality; Digital Platforms; Strategy; Market Entry and Exit

Citation

Kim, Hyunjin, and Michael Luca. "Product Quality and Entering Through Tying: Experimental Evidence." Management Science 65, no. 2 (February 2019): 596–603.
  • Find it at Harvard
  • Purchase

About The Author

Michael Luca

Negotiation, Organizations & Markets
→More Publications

More from the Authors

    • February 2023
    • Faculty Research

    Shanty Real Estate: Teaching Note Supplement

    By: Michael Luca
    • 2023
    • Faculty Research

    Black Ownership Matters: Does Revealing Race Increase Demand for Minority-Owned Businesses?

    By: Abhay Aneja, Michael Luca and Oren Reshef
    • January 23, 2023
    • Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences

    Digital Public Health Interventions at Scale: The Impact of Social Media Advertising on Beliefs and Outcomes Related to COVID Vaccines

    By: Susan Athey, Kristen Grabarz, Michael Luca and Nils Wernerfelt
More from the Authors
  • Shanty Real Estate: Teaching Note Supplement By: Michael Luca
  • Black Ownership Matters: Does Revealing Race Increase Demand for Minority-Owned Businesses? By: Abhay Aneja, Michael Luca and Oren Reshef
  • Digital Public Health Interventions at Scale: The Impact of Social Media Advertising on Beliefs and Outcomes Related to COVID Vaccines By: Susan Athey, Kristen Grabarz, Michael Luca and Nils Wernerfelt
ǁ
Campus Map
Harvard Business School
Soldiers Field
Boston, MA 02163
→Map & Directions
→More Contact Information
  • Make a Gift
  • Site Map
  • Jobs
  • Harvard University
  • Trademarks
  • Policies
  • Accessibility
  • Digital Accessibility
Copyright © President & Fellows of Harvard College