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Michael Luca

Michael Luca

Lee J. Styslinger III Associate Professor of Business Administration

Lee J. Styslinger III Associate Professor of Business Administration

Michael Luca is the Lee J. Styslinger III Associate Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School. Professor Luca's research, teaching, and advisory work focuses on the design of online platforms, and on helping organizations to leverage data to inform managerial and policy decisions. He is a coauthor of The Power of Experiments: Decision-Making in a Data Driven World.
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Michael Luca is the Lee J. Styslinger III Associate Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School, and a faculty research fellow at the NBER. Professor Luca's research, teaching, and advisory work focuses on the design of online platforms, and on the ways in which data can inform managerial and policy decisions. His research has been published in academic journals including the Journal of Economic Perspectives, Management Science, the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, American Economic Review: Papers and Proceeding, the American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, and the American Economic Journal: Microeconomics. He has also written about behavioral economics and online platforms for media outlets including The Wall Street Journal, The Atlantic, Wired, and Slate. His research has been written about in a variety of media outlets including The Wall Street Journal, New York Times, New Yorker, Atlantic, Economist, Washington Post, Financial Times, Guardian, Huffington Post, Harvard Business Review, Time, USA Today, Boston Globe, LA Times, San Francisco Chronicle, Fortune, Mashable, GQ, Wired, and Vox.

At Harvard, Professor Luca developed and teaches an MBA course called Data Driven Leadership. He has taught and developed materials for executive education and MBA courses on business analytics, behavioral economics, and leadership.  

Professor Luca's current and past advisory roles include Board Member of the National Association for Business Economics (NABE), Academic Advisory Board Member of the Behavioural Insights Team, Advisory Board Member for the OECD Digital for SMEs Global Initiative, and Advisory Board Member for the CNBC Technology Executive Council.  

 

 

 

 

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Negotiation, Organizations & Markets
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Michael Luca
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Featured Work Publications Research Summary
Economists (and Economics) in Tech Companies
As technology platforms have created new markets and new ways of acquiring information, economists have come to play an increasingly central role in tech companies-tackling problems such as platform design, strategy, pricing, and policy. Over the past five years, hundreds of PhD economists have accepted positions in the technology sector. In this paper, we explore the skills that PhD economists apply in tech companies, the companies that hire them, the types of problems that economists are currently working on, and the areas of academic research that have emerged in relation to these problems.
Tech: economists wanted

An interview with Susan Athey and Michael Luca about the mutual influence between economics and the tech sector.

The Power of Experiments
Decision Making in a Data-Driven World

Have you logged into Facebook recently? Searched for something on Google? Chosen a movie on Netflix? If so, you've probably been an unwitting participant in a variety of experiments—also known as randomized controlled trials—designed to test the impact of changes to an experience or product. Once an esoteric tool for academic research, the randomized controlled trial has gone mainstream – and is becoming an important part of the managerial toolkit.

In The Power of Experiments: Decision-Making in a Data Driven World, Michael Luca and Max Bazerman explore the value of experiments, and the ways in which they can improve organizational decisions. Drawing on real world experiments and case studies, Luca and Bazerman show that going by gut is no longer enough—successful leaders need frameworks for moving between data and decisions. Experiments can save companies money—eBay, for example, discovered how to cut $50 million from its yearly advertising budget without losing customers. Experiments can also bring to light something previously ignored, as when Airbnb was forced to confront rampant discrimination by its hosts.

The Power of Experiments introduces readers to the topic of experimentation and the managerial challenges that surround them.  Looking at experiments in the tech sector and beyond, this book offers lessons and best practices for making the most of experiments.

 

750 Gun Deaths a Year Are Prevented by Waiting Periods, Study Finds

State waiting periods for handgun purchases prevent about 750 gun deaths each year in the United States, new research has found.

An estimated 910 gun deaths could also be avoided if those policies were adopted nationwide, according to the study, published Monday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Continue reading here.

Survival of the Fittest: The Impact of the Minimum Wage on Firm Exit
Abstract: We study the impact of the minimum wage on firm exit in the restaurant industry, exploiting recent changes in the minimum wage at the city level. The evidence suggests that higher minimum wages increase overall exit rates for restaurants. However, lower quality restaurants, which are already closer to the margin of exit, are disproportionately impacted by increases to the minimum wage. Our point estimates suggest that a one dollar increase in the minimum wage leads to a 14 percent increase in the likelihood of exit for a 3.5-star restaurant (which is the median rating), but has no discernible impact for a 5-star restaurant (on a 1 to 5 star scale).
Podcast: Yelp ratings may be predictor of how restaurants fare after a minimum wage increase
Some restaurants owners have argued that raising the minimum wage may force them to close, or cut staff. Now a new study suggests that this only really happens to restaurants with lower customer satisfaction ratings as measured by Yelp.
Racial Discrimination in the Sharing Economy: Evidence from a Field Experiment
Abstract: In an experiment on Airbnb, we find that applications from guests with distinctively African American names are 16 percent less likely to be accepted relative to identical guests with distinctively white names. Discrimination occurs among landlords of all sizes, including small landlords sharing the property and larger landlords with multiple properties. It is most pronounced among hosts who have never had an African American guest, suggesting only a subset of hosts discriminate. While rental markets have achieved significant reductions in discrimination in recent decades, our results suggest that Airbnb's current design choices facilitate discrimination and raise the possibility of erasing some of these civil rights gains.
Podcast: When Personalization Leads To Discrimination On AirBnB
NPR Hidden Brain Podcast
In the sharing economy, the goal to personalize the exchange can have some unintended consequences. The Hidden Brain podcast explores how discrimination plays out on AirBnB.
Airbnb Isn't Doing Enough
The company announced plans to combat discrimination on its platform. It’s still falling short.
Not that long ago, online commerce promised not only to make markets more efficient but also more inclusive and less prone to discrimination. The rationale was simple: On the internet, no one knows whether you’re black or white, male or female, making it more difficult for discrimination to occur. Those early ideals have long since withered, as Airbnb and other online platforms have increasingly asked buyers and sellers to provide pictures and other racially identifying information to counterparties. Even worse, the emergence of discrimination in online markets is undoing gains that occurred in offline markets through decades of regulation and enforcement.

Read the rest of the story at Slate.
Fixing Discrimination in Online Marketplaces
In the late 1980s, law professors Ian Ayres and Peter Siegelman set out to learn whether blacks and women got the same deals as white men when buying a new car. They trained 38 people—some white and some black, some male and some female—to negotiate a purchase using a fixed script, and uncovered disturbing differences: Across 153 dealerships, black and female buyers paid more for the same cars than white men did, with black women paying the most—on average, nearly $900 more than white men. Although the findings weren’t a surprise to most people, least of all to blacks and women, they were a compelling demonstration of just how discriminatory markets can be.

Read the rest at hbr.org.
Algorithms Need Managers, Too
Most managers’ jobs involve making predictions. When HR specialists decide whom to hire, they’re predicting who will be most effective. When marketers choose which distribution channels to use, they’re predicting where a product will sell best. When VCs determine whether to fund a start-up, they’re predicting whether it will succeed. To make these and myriad other business predictions, companies today are turning more and more to computer algorithms, which perform step-by-step analytical operations at incredible speed and scale.

Read the rest at hbr.org.
How to Design (and Analyze) a Business Experiment
This article lays out seven steps to ensure that your experiment delivers.

Michael Luca is the Lee J. Styslinger III Associate Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School, and a faculty research fellow at the NBER. Professor Luca's research, teaching, and advisory work focuses on the design of online platforms, and on the ways in which data can inform managerial and policy decisions. His research has been published in academic journals including the Journal of Economic Perspectives, Management Science, the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, American Economic Review: Papers and Proceeding, the American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, and the American Economic Journal: Microeconomics. He has also written about behavioral economics and online platforms for media outlets including The Wall Street Journal, The Atlantic, Wired, and Slate. His research has been written about in a variety of media outlets including The Wall Street Journal, New York Times, New Yorker, Atlantic, Economist, Washington Post, Financial Times, Guardian, Huffington Post, Harvard Business Review, Time, USA Today, Boston Globe, LA Times, San Francisco Chronicle, Fortune, Mashable, GQ, Wired, and Vox.

At Harvard, Professor Luca developed and teaches an MBA course called Data Driven Leadership. He has taught and developed materials for executive education and MBA courses on business analytics, behavioral economics, and leadership.  

Professor Luca's current and past advisory roles include Board Member of the National Association for Business Economics (NABE), Academic Advisory Board Member of the Behavioural Insights Team, Advisory Board Member for the OECD Digital for SMEs Global Initiative, and Advisory Board Member for the CNBC Technology Executive Council.  

 

 

 

 

Featured Work
Economists (and Economics) in Tech Companies
As technology platforms have created new markets and new ways of acquiring information, economists have come to play an increasingly central role in tech companies-tackling problems such as platform design, strategy, pricing, and policy. Over the past five years, hundreds of PhD economists have accepted positions in the technology sector. In this paper, we explore the skills that PhD economists apply in tech companies, the companies that hire them, the types of problems that economists are currently working on, and the areas of academic research that have emerged in relation to these problems.
Tech: economists wanted

An interview with Susan Athey and Michael Luca about the mutual influence between economics and the tech sector.

The Power of Experiments
Decision Making in a Data-Driven World

Have you logged into Facebook recently? Searched for something on Google? Chosen a movie on Netflix? If so, you've probably been an unwitting participant in a variety of experiments—also known as randomized controlled trials—designed to test the impact of changes to an experience or product. Once an esoteric tool for academic research, the randomized controlled trial has gone mainstream – and is becoming an important part of the managerial toolkit.

In The Power of Experiments: Decision-Making in a Data Driven World, Michael Luca and Max Bazerman explore the value of experiments, and the ways in which they can improve organizational decisions. Drawing on real world experiments and case studies, Luca and Bazerman show that going by gut is no longer enough—successful leaders need frameworks for moving between data and decisions. Experiments can save companies money—eBay, for example, discovered how to cut $50 million from its yearly advertising budget without losing customers. Experiments can also bring to light something previously ignored, as when Airbnb was forced to confront rampant discrimination by its hosts.

The Power of Experiments introduces readers to the topic of experimentation and the managerial challenges that surround them.  Looking at experiments in the tech sector and beyond, this book offers lessons and best practices for making the most of experiments.

 

750 Gun Deaths a Year Are Prevented by Waiting Periods, Study Finds

State waiting periods for handgun purchases prevent about 750 gun deaths each year in the United States, new research has found.

An estimated 910 gun deaths could also be avoided if those policies were adopted nationwide, according to the study, published Monday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Continue reading here.

Survival of the Fittest: The Impact of the Minimum Wage on Firm Exit
Abstract: We study the impact of the minimum wage on firm exit in the restaurant industry, exploiting recent changes in the minimum wage at the city level. The evidence suggests that higher minimum wages increase overall exit rates for restaurants. However, lower quality restaurants, which are already closer to the margin of exit, are disproportionately impacted by increases to the minimum wage. Our point estimates suggest that a one dollar increase in the minimum wage leads to a 14 percent increase in the likelihood of exit for a 3.5-star restaurant (which is the median rating), but has no discernible impact for a 5-star restaurant (on a 1 to 5 star scale).
Podcast: Yelp ratings may be predictor of how restaurants fare after a minimum wage increase
Some restaurants owners have argued that raising the minimum wage may force them to close, or cut staff. Now a new study suggests that this only really happens to restaurants with lower customer satisfaction ratings as measured by Yelp.
Racial Discrimination in the Sharing Economy: Evidence from a Field Experiment
Abstract: In an experiment on Airbnb, we find that applications from guests with distinctively African American names are 16 percent less likely to be accepted relative to identical guests with distinctively white names. Discrimination occurs among landlords of all sizes, including small landlords sharing the property and larger landlords with multiple properties. It is most pronounced among hosts who have never had an African American guest, suggesting only a subset of hosts discriminate. While rental markets have achieved significant reductions in discrimination in recent decades, our results suggest that Airbnb's current design choices facilitate discrimination and raise the possibility of erasing some of these civil rights gains.
Podcast: When Personalization Leads To Discrimination On AirBnB
NPR Hidden Brain Podcast
In the sharing economy, the goal to personalize the exchange can have some unintended consequences. The Hidden Brain podcast explores how discrimination plays out on AirBnB.
Airbnb Isn't Doing Enough
The company announced plans to combat discrimination on its platform. It’s still falling short.
Not that long ago, online commerce promised not only to make markets more efficient but also more inclusive and less prone to discrimination. The rationale was simple: On the internet, no one knows whether you’re black or white, male or female, making it more difficult for discrimination to occur. Those early ideals have long since withered, as Airbnb and other online platforms have increasingly asked buyers and sellers to provide pictures and other racially identifying information to counterparties. Even worse, the emergence of discrimination in online markets is undoing gains that occurred in offline markets through decades of regulation and enforcement.

Read the rest of the story at Slate.
Fixing Discrimination in Online Marketplaces
In the late 1980s, law professors Ian Ayres and Peter Siegelman set out to learn whether blacks and women got the same deals as white men when buying a new car. They trained 38 people—some white and some black, some male and some female—to negotiate a purchase using a fixed script, and uncovered disturbing differences: Across 153 dealerships, black and female buyers paid more for the same cars than white men did, with black women paying the most—on average, nearly $900 more than white men. Although the findings weren’t a surprise to most people, least of all to blacks and women, they were a compelling demonstration of just how discriminatory markets can be.

Read the rest at hbr.org.
Algorithms Need Managers, Too
Most managers’ jobs involve making predictions. When HR specialists decide whom to hire, they’re predicting who will be most effective. When marketers choose which distribution channels to use, they’re predicting where a product will sell best. When VCs determine whether to fund a start-up, they’re predicting whether it will succeed. To make these and myriad other business predictions, companies today are turning more and more to computer algorithms, which perform step-by-step analytical operations at incredible speed and scale.

Read the rest at hbr.org.
How to Design (and Analyze) a Business Experiment
This article lays out seven steps to ensure that your experiment delivers.
Journal Articles
  • Athey, Susan, Kristen Grabarz, Michael Luca, and Nils Wernerfelt. "Digital Public Health Interventions at Scale: The Impact of Social Media Advertising on Beliefs and Outcomes Related to COVID Vaccines." e2208110120. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 120, no. 5 (January 23, 2023). View Details
  • Glaeser, Edward L., Michael Luca, and Erica Moszkowski. "Gentrification and Retail Churn: Theory and Evidence." Regional Science and Urban Economics (forthcoming). View Details
  • Dai, Weijia, Hyunjin Kim, and Michael Luca. "Which Firms Gain from Digital Advertising? Evidence from a Field Experiment." Marketing Science (forthcoming). View Details
  • Balla-Elliott, Dylan, Zoë B. Cullen, Edward L. Glaeser, Michael Luca, and Christopher Stanton. "Determinants of Small Business Reopening Decisions After COVID Restrictions Were Lifted." Journal of Policy Analysis and Management 41, no. 1 (Winter 2022): 278–317. View Details
  • Luca, Michael, Ginger Zhe Jin, and Daniel Martin. "Strategic Complexity? Using Experiments to Understand and Overcome Obfuscation." Management Science Review (June 29, 2022). (Summary of "Complex Disclosure," Management Science, May 2022.) View Details
  • Jin, Ginger Zhe, Michael Luca, and Daniel Martin. "Complex Disclosure." Management Science 68, no. 5 (May 2022): 3236–3261. View Details
  • Glaeser, Edward L., Ginger Zhe Jin, Michael Luca, and Benjamin T. Leyden. "Learning from Deregulation: The Asymmetric Impact of Lockdown and Reopening on Risky Behavior During COVID-19." Journal of Regional Science 61, no. 4 (June, 2021): 696–709. View Details
  • Luca, Michael, and Oren Reshef. "The Effect of Price on Firm Reputation." Management Science 67, no. 7 (July 2021): 4408–4419. View Details
  • Jin, Ginger Zhe, Michael Luca, and Daniel Martin. "Is No News (Perceived as) Bad News? An Experimental Investigation of Information Disclosure." American Economic Journal: Microeconomics 13, no. 2 (May 2021): 141–173. View Details
  • Bartik, Alexander, Marianne Bertrand, Zoë B. Cullen, Edward L. Glaeser, Michael Luca, and Christopher Stanton. "The Impact of COVID-19 on Small Business Outcomes and Expectations." Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 117, no. 30 (July 28, 2020): 17656–66. View Details
  • Luca, Michael, and Max Bazerman. "Want to Make Better Decisions? Start Experimenting." MIT Sloan Management Review 61, no. 4 (Summer 2020). View Details
  • Luca, Michael, Deepak Malhotra, and Christopher Poliquin. "The Impact of Mass Shootings on Gun Policy." Art. 104083. Journal of Public Economics 181 (January 2020). View Details
  • Donaker, Geoff, Hyunjin Kim, and Michael Luca. "Designing Better Online Review Systems." Harvard Business Review 97, no. 6 (November–December 2019): 122–129. View Details
  • Kim, Hyunjin, and Michael Luca. "Product Quality and Entering Through Tying: Experimental Evidence." Management Science 65, no. 2 (February 2019): 596–603. View Details
  • Glaeser, Edward L., Hyunjin Kim, and Michael Luca. "Nowcasting Gentrification: Using Yelp Data to Quantify Neighborhood Change." AEA Papers and Proceedings 108 (May 2018): 77–82. View Details
  • Dai, Weijia, Ginger Jin, Jungmin Lee, and Michael Luca. "Aggregation of Consumer Ratings: An Application to Yelp.com." Quantitative Marketing and Economics 16, no. 3 (September 2018): 289–339. View Details
  • Glaeser, Edward L., Scott Duke Kominers, Michael Luca, and Nikhil Naik. "Big Data and Big Cities: The Promises and Limitations of Improved Measures of Urban Life." Economic Inquiry 56, no. 1 (January 2018): 114–137. View Details
  • Luca, Michael, Deepak Malhotra, and Christopher Poliquin. "Handgun Waiting Periods Reduce Gun Deaths." Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 114, no. 46 (November 14, 2017). View Details
  • Edelman, Benjamin, Michael Luca, and Daniel Svirsky. "Racial Discrimination in the Sharing Economy: Evidence from a Field Experiment." American Economic Journal: Applied Economics 9, no. 2 (April 2017): 1–22. View Details
  • Chalfin, Aaron, Oren Danieli, Andrew Hillis, Zubin Jelveh, Michael Luca, Jens Ludwig, and Sendhil Mullainathan. "Productivity and Selection of Human Capital with Machine Learning." American Economic Review: Papers and Proceedings 106, no. 5 (May 2016): 124–127. View Details
  • Fisman, Ray, and Michael Luca. "Fixing Discrimination in Online Marketplaces." Harvard Business Review 94, no. 12 (November, 2016): 88–95. View Details
  • Glaeser, Edward, Andrew Hillis, Scott Duke Kominers, and Michael Luca. "Crowdsourcing City Government: Using Tournaments to Improve Inspection Accuracy." American Economic Review: Papers and Proceedings 106, no. 5 (May 2016): 114–118. View Details
  • Luca, Michael, Jon Kleinberg, and Sendhil Mullainathan. "Algorithms Need Managers, Too." Harvard Business Review 94, nos. 1/2 (January–February 2016): 96–101. View Details
  • Luca, Michael, and Georgios Zervas. "Fake It Till You Make It: Reputation, Competition, and Yelp Review Fraud." Management Science 62, no. 12 (December 2016): 3412–3427. View Details
  • Gilchrist, Duncan S., Michael Luca, and Deepak Malhotra. "When 3+1>4: Gift Structure and Reciprocity in the Field." Management Science 62, no. 9 (September 2016): 2639–2650. View Details
  • Luca, Michael, and Jonathan Smith. "Strategic Disclosure: The Case of Business School Rankings." Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization 112 (April 2015): 17–25. View Details
  • Bardhan, Pranab, Michael Luca, Dilip Mookherjee, and Francisco Pino. "Evolution of Land Distribution in West Bengal 1967–2004: Role of Land Reform and Demographic Changes." Journal of Development Economics 110 (September 2014): 171–190. View Details
  • Dobrescu, Loretti I., Michael Luca, and Alberto Motta. "What Makes a Critic Tick? Connected Authors and the Determinants of Book Reviews." Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization 96 (December 2013): 85–103. View Details
  • Luca, Michael, and Jonathan Smith. "Salience in Quality Disclosure: Evidence from the U.S. News College Rankings." Journal of Economics & Management Strategy 22, no. 1 (Spring 2013): 58–77. View Details
  • Kang, Jun Seok, Polina Kuznetsova, Yejin Choi, and Michael Luca. "Where Not to Eat? Improving Public Policy by Predicting Hygiene Inspections Using Online Reviews." Proceedings of the Conference on Empirical Methods in Natural Language Processing (2013): 1443–1448. View Details
Book Chapters
  • Glaeser, Edward L., Hyunjin Kim, and Michael Luca. "Nowcasting the Local Economy: Using Yelp Data to Measure Economic Activity." Harvard Business School Working Paper, No. 18-022, September 2017. (Revised October 2017.) View Details
  • Luca, Michael. "User-Generated Content and Social Media." Chap. 12 in Handbook of Media Economics. Vol. 1B, edited by Simon Anderson, Joel Waldfogel, and David Strömberg. North-Holland Publishing Company, 2016. View Details
Working Papers
  • Aneja, Abhay, Michael Luca, and Oren Reshef. "Black Ownership Matters: Does Revealing Race Increase Demand for Minority-Owned Businesses?" Harvard Business School Working Paper, No. 23-042, January 2023. (Revised February 2023.) View Details
  • Luca, Michael, Abhishek Nagaraj, and Gauri Subramani. "Getting on the Map: The Impact of Online Listings on Business Performance." Harvard Business School Working Paper, No. 23-031, December 2022. View Details
  • Luca, Michael, Elizaveta Pronkina, and Michelangelo Rossi. "Scapegoating and Discrimination in Times of Crisis: Evidence from Airbnb." Harvard Business School Working Paper, No. 23-012, August 2022. (Revised March 2023.) View Details
  • Bartik, Alexander, Zoë B. Cullen, Edward L. Glaeser, Michael Luca, Christopher Stanton, and Adi Sunderam. "The Targeting and Impact of Paycheck Protection Program Loans to Small Businesses." Harvard Business School Working Paper, No. 21-021, August 2020. View Details
  • Bartik, Alexander, Zoë Cullen, Edward L. Glaeser, Michael Luca, and Christopher Stanton. "What Jobs Are Being Done at Home During the COVID-19 Crisis? Evidence from Firm-Level Surveys." Harvard Business School Working Paper, No. 20-138, June 2020. View Details
  • Luca, Dara Lee, and Michael Luca. "Survival of the Fittest: The Impact of the Minimum Wage on Firm Exit." Harvard Business School Working Paper, No. 17-088, April 2017. (Revised August 2018.) View Details
  • Luca, Michael. "Reviews, Reputation, and Revenue: The Case of Yelp.com." Harvard Business School Working Paper, No. 12-016, September 2011. (Revised March 2016. Revise and resubmit at the American Economic Journal - Applied Economics.) View Details
  • Edelman, Benjamin, and Michael Luca. "Digital Discrimination: The Case of Airbnb.com." Harvard Business School Working Paper, No. 14-054, January 2014. View Details
  • Glaeser, Edward L., Hyunjin Kim, and Michael Luca. "Nowcasting Gentrification: Using Yelp Data to Quantify Neighborhood Change." Harvard Business School Working Paper, No. 18-077, February 2018. View Details
  • Glaeser, Edward L., Scott Duke Kominers, Michael Luca, and Nikhil Naik. "Big Data and Big Cities: The Promises and Limitations of Improved Measures of Urban Life." Harvard Business School Working Paper, No. 16-065, November 2015. View Details
  • Luca, Michael, and Jonathan Smith. "Strategic Disclosure: The Case of Business School Rankings." Working Paper. (Revised and resubmitted, Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization.) View Details
Cases and Teaching Materials
  • Luca, Michael, Jesse M. Shapiro, and Nathan Sun. "Shanty Real Estate: Teaching Note." Harvard Business School Teaching Note 923-031, January 2023. (Teaching Note for HBS Case Nos. 923-016, 923-017, 923-018, 923-019, 923-020, 923-021, 923-022, and 923-023.) View Details
  • Luca, Michael, Jesse M. Shapiro, and Nathan Sun. "Shanty Real Estate: Confidential Information for iBuyer 1." Harvard Business School Exercise 923-019, October 2022. View Details
  • Luca, Michael, Jesse M. Shapiro, and Nathan Sun. "Shanty Real Estate: Confidential Information for Homebuyer 1." Harvard Business School Exercise 923-016, October 2022. View Details
  • Luca, Michael, Jesse M. Shapiro, and Nathan Sun. "Shanty Real Estate: Confidential Information for Homebuyer 2." Harvard Business School Exercise 923-017, October 2022. View Details
  • Luca, Michael, Jesse M. Shapiro, and Nathan Sun. "Shanty Real Estate: Confidential Information for Homebuyer 3." Harvard Business School Exercise 923-018, October 2022. View Details
  • Luca, Michael, Jesse M. Shapiro, and Nathan Sun. "Shanty Real Estate: Confidential Information for iBuyer 2." Harvard Business School Exercise 923-020, October 2022. View Details
  • Luca, Michael, Jesse M. Shapiro, and Nathan Sun. "Shanty Real Estate: Confidential Information for iBuyer 3." Harvard Business School Exercise 923-021, October 2022. View Details
  • Luca, Michael, Jesse M. Shapiro, and Nathan Sun. "Shanty Real Estate: Updated Confidential Information for Homebuyer." Harvard Business School Exercise 923-022, October 2022. View Details
  • Luca, Michael, Jesse M. Shapiro, and Nathan Sun. "Shanty Real Estate: Updated Confidential Information for iBuyer." Harvard Business School Exercise 923-023, October 2022. View Details
  • Luca, Michael, and Stacy Straaberg. "Racial Discrimination on Airbnb (B)." Harvard Business School Supplement 923-004, August 2022. (Revised January 2023.) View Details
  • Luca, Michael, Jesse M. Shapiro, and Julia Kelley. "Real Estate iBuying." Harvard Business School Technical Note 923-001, August 2022. (Revised March 2023.) View Details
  • Luca, Michael, and Max Bazerman. "Behavior Change for Good." Harvard Business School Teaching Note 920-041, March 2020. View Details
  • Luca, Michael. "Racial Discrimination on Airbnb (A) and (B)." Harvard Business School Teaching Note 920-039, March 2020. (Revised February 2023.) View Details
  • Luca, Michael, Scott Stern, Devin Cook, and Hyunjin Kim. "Racial Discrimination on Airbnb (A)." Harvard Business School Case 920-051, March 2020. (Revised August 2022.) View Details
  • Luca, Michael. "The Role of Experiments in Organizations." Harvard Business School Module Note 920-044, March 2020. (Revised March 2023.) View Details
  • Bazerman, Max, Michael Luca, and Marie Lawrence. "Behavior Change for Good." Harvard Business School Case 920-049, March 2020. View Details
  • Luca, Michael, Ariella Kristal, and Emilie Billaud. "Creating the French Behavioral Insights Team." Harvard Business School Case 919-015, December 2018. (Revised June 2020.) View Details
  • Beshears, John, Michael Luca, Alister Martin, and Simin Gharib Lee. "Nudging Hand Hygiene Compliance at the Brigham and Women's Hospital." Harvard Business School Case 918-035, March 2018. View Details
  • Luca, Michael, Joshua Schwartzstein, and Gauri Subramani. "Managing Diversity and Inclusion at Yelp." Harvard Business School Case 918-009, August 2017. (Revised February 2023.) View Details
  • Luca, Michael, Stephanie Chan, and Essie Alamsyah. "Paktor: Designing a Dating App." Harvard Business School Case 918-005, August 2017. (Revised November 2017.) View Details
  • Luca, Michael, Kevin Mohan, and Patrick Rooney. "Launching Yelp Reservations." Harvard Business School Teaching Note 917-005, July 2016. View Details
  • Luca, Michael, Weijia Dai, and Hyunjin Kim. "Advertising Experiments at RestaurantGrades." Harvard Business School Teaching Note 916-039, March 2016. (Revised February 2023.) View Details
  • Dai, Weijia, Hyunjin Kim, and Michael Luca. "Advertising Experiments at RestaurantGrades." Harvard Business School Spreadsheet Supplement 916-702, March 2016. View Details
  • Luca, Michael, Weijia Dai, and Hyunjin Kim. "Advertising Experiments at RestaurantGrades." Harvard Business School Exercise 916-038, March 2016. (Revised February 2023.) View Details
  • Luca, Michael. "Designing a Dating App." Harvard Business School Background Note 916-030, January 2016. View Details
  • Luca, Michael, and Patrick Rooney. "Behavioural Insights Team (A) and (B)." Harvard Business School Teaching Note 916-050, March 2016. (Revised January 2020.) View Details
  • Luca, Michael, Kevin Mohan, and Patrick Rooney. "Launching Yelp Reservations (A)." Harvard Business School Case 916-003, July 2015. (Revised April 2016.) View Details
  • Luca, Michael, Kevin Mohan, and Patrick Rooney. "Launching Yelp Reservations (B)." Harvard Business School Supplement 916-004, August 2015. View Details
  • Luca, Michael, and Patrick Rooney. "Behavioural Insights Team (A)." Harvard Business School Case 915-024, March 2015. (Revised January 2020.) View Details
  • Luca, Michael, and Patrick Rooney. "Behavioural Insights Team (B)." Harvard Business School Supplement 915-025, March 2015. (Revised January 2020.) View Details
  • Edelman, Benjamin, and Michael Luca. "Airbnb (A)." Harvard Business School Case 912-019, December 2011. (Revised March 2012.) (request a courtesy copy.) View Details
  • Edelman, Benjamin, and Michael Luca. "Airbnb (B)." Harvard Business School Supplement 912-020, December 2011. (Revised March 2012.) View Details
  • Edelman, Benjamin, and Michael Luca. "Airbnb (A) and (B)." Harvard Business School Teaching Note 912-021, December 2011. (Revised March 2015.) View Details
  • Luca, Michael. "Shanty Real Estate: Teaching Note Supplement." Harvard Business School Spreadsheet Supplement 923-715, February 2023. View Details
Other Publications and Materials
  • Luca, Michael. "What the Research Really Says about American Immigration, Book review of Streets of Gold: America's Untold Story of Immigrant Success, by Ran Abramitzky and Leah Boustan." Washington Post (June 10, 2022). View Details
  • Luca, Michael. "In Defense of Online Anonymity." Wall Street Journal (June 18, 2022). View Details
  • Luca, Michael, Elizaveta Pronkina, and Michaelangelo Rossi. "Ensuring Your Products Aren’t Used for Discrimination." Harvard Business Review Digital Articles (October 10, 2022). View Details
  • Luca, Michael. "The Sinister Logic of Hidden Online Fees." Wall Street Journal (online) (November 23, 2022). View Details
  • Luca, Michael. "Leaders: Stop Confusing Correlation with Causation." Harvard Business Review Digital Articles (November 5, 2021). View Details
  • Luca, Michael. "The Family Firm Review: Data-Driven Parenting." Wall Street Journal (September 1, 2021). View Details
Books
  • Luca, Michael, and Max H. Bazerman. The Power of Experiments: Decision-Making in a Data-Driven World. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2020. View Details
Research Summary
Research overview
The growth of consumer review websites over the past decade has revolutionized the way in which consumers learn about product quality. The centrality of information to consumer welfare has also been underscored in public policy debates, where quality disclosure has become an increasingly popular policy instrument. How do these new sources of information affect consumer decisions and firm incentives? Professor Luca uses econometric methods to investigate this question, with a research agenda at the intersection of public policy and industrial organization.
Crowdsourced reviews

To determine whether online consumer reviews influence the way that reputation is formed, Professor Luca has combined reviews from the website Yelp.com with public restaurant data. He has shown that a one-star increase in Yelp ratings results in a 5- to 9-percent increase in an independent restaurant’s revenue. Further, while chain restaurants are unaffected by rating changes, their market shares decline as Yelp penetrates the market.

Professor Luca also examines which features of review websites have the largest impact on consumer decision making. He has found that while consumers do not use all available information, they respond more strongly when a rating contains more information (number of reviews overall and number of “elite” reviewers).

The limits of reviews

Consumer reviews are an important source of information in the digital age. Yet there are limits to the role that reviews can play. In a case study, Professor Luca discusses the limits of reviews and how companies can create more comprehensive reputation systems geared toward facilitating trust in online marketplaces. In ongoing research, he is analyzing the role of information in online marketplaces such as Airbnb.

Quality disclosure and consumer behavior

Professor Luca has investigated the relationship among quality disclosure, salience, and consumer behavior. He has found that when colleges are presented by rank in U.S. News & World Report, a one-rank improvement for an institution causes nearly a percentage point increase in the number of applications it receives. Conversely, rankings have no effect on application decisions when colleges are listed alphabetically, even though the quality data and methodology to calculate the rank are provided.

Additional Information
Curriculum Vitae
  • Curriculum Vitae
Areas of Interest
  • decision-making
  • electronic commerce
  • electronic markets
  • user-generated content
  • Additional Topics
  • economics
  • education
  • incentives
  • information technology
  • market design
  • market institutions
  • marketing
  • social interactions
  • word of mouth
  • Industries
  • education industry
  • information
  • internet
  • marketing industry
  • media
  • restaurant
In The News

In The News

    • 28 Jul 2020
    • HBS Working Knowledge

    Racism and Digital Design: How Online Platforms Can Thwart Discrimination

    • 24 Aug 2020
    • HBS Working Knowledge

    How Much Will Remote Work Continue After the Pandemic?

    • 25 Oct 2020
    • Wall Street Journal

    How Consumers Really Use Online Reviews

    • 03 Dec 2020
    • Harvard Business School

    Faculty Books Published in 2020

    • 25 Mar 2021
    • Harvard Business School

    Steer Clear of the Blind Spots That Derail Experiments

→More News for Michael Luca

Michael Luca In the News

28 Jul 2020
HBS Working Knowledge
Racism and Digital Design: How Online Platforms Can Thwart Discrimination

24 Aug 2020
HBS Working Knowledge
How Much Will Remote Work Continue After the Pandemic?

25 Oct 2020
Wall Street Journal
How Consumers Really Use Online Reviews

03 Dec 2020
Harvard Business School
Faculty Books Published in 2020

25 Mar 2021
Harvard Business School
Steer Clear of the Blind Spots That Derail Experiments

05 Nov 2021
Harvard Business Review
Leaders: Stop Confusing Correlation with Causation

03 Jan 2022
Wall Street Journal
‘Get It Done’ Review: A Mindset for Motivation

06 Apr 2022
Harvard Business Review
How to Use Correlation to Make Predictions

10 Jun 2022
Washington Post
What the Research Really Says about American Immigration

17 Jun 2022
Wall Street Journal
In Defense of Online Anonymity

16 Aug 2022
Boston Globe
Harvard Study Suggests Anti-Asian Discrimination Spiked on Airbnb during COVID

21 Aug 2022
Center for Health Journalism
Coronavirus Files: CDC to Address Failures, Boosters Coming Soon

10 Oct 2022
Harvard Business Review
Ensuring Your Products Aren’t Used for Discrimination

23 Nov 2022
Wall Street Journal
The Sinister Logic of Hidden Online Fees

17 Jan 2019
Wall Street Journal
Shutdown Shock May Endure for Federal Workers

05 Nov 2018
Harvard Business Review
Using Experiments to Launch New Products

29 Oct 2018
HBS Working Knowledge
Hunting for a Hot Job in High Tech? Try 'Digitization Economist'

10 Oct 2018
Harvard Business Review
How Amazon’s Higher Wages Could Increase Productivity

06 Sep 2018
Washington Post
Starbucks, florists and other warning signs home prices are about to go up

15 Jun 2018
BBC
How customer complaints help companies

16 May 2018
Harvard Business Review
How Companies Can Use the Data They Collect to Further the Public Good

26 Mar 2018
Chicago Tribune
A cooling-off period on handgun purchases nationwide would save lives

20 Feb 2018
Wall Street Journal
Using Yelp to Find the Next Hot Neighborhood

13 Feb 2018
Bloomberg
Is America in a Retail Apocalypse? Ask Yelp

10 Jan 2018
Boston Globe
Time to end the debate and face facts: Minimum wage laws hurt the poor

08 Dec 2017
Wall Street Journal
How to Suppress Your Inner Scrooge

14 Nov 2017
Bloomberg
How That Yelp Review Could Complement Government Data: Eco Pulse

09 Nov 2017
Economist
A minority of gun owners have a veto over gun laws

08 Nov 2017
HBS Working Knowledge
Handgun Waiting Periods Prevent Hundreds of Homicides Each Year

31 Oct 2017
Harvard Business Review
Why COOs Should Think Like Behavioral Economists

17 Oct 2017
Bloomberg
Handgun Waiting Periods Actually Do Save Lives

16 Oct 2017
New York Times
750 Gun Deaths a Year Are Prevented by Waiting Periods, Study Finds

16 Oct 2017
Science
Gun waiting periods could save hundreds of lives a year, study says

06 Oct 2017
New York Times
Guns and the Soul of America

20 Sep 2017
Harvard Business Review
Lessons from Yelp’s Empirical Approach to Diversity

31 Aug 2017
Harvard Business Review
How Netflix’s Content Strategy Is Reshaping Movie Culture

26 Jul 2017
Washington Post
Faced with complaints of discrimination, Airbnb partners with NAACP to recruit black hosts

19 May 2017
Los Angeles Times
Minimum wage increases can kill businesses — if they already stink

09 May 2017
Wall Street Journal
The Minimum Wage Eats Restaurants

08 May 2017
NPR: All Things Considered
Restaurants With Low Yelp Ratings Suffer Under Higher Minimum Wages

27 Apr 2017
Economist
Higher minimum wages may make bad restaurants close

26 Apr 2017
Atlantic
The Restaurants Hurt Most by Minimum-Wage Hikes

26 Apr 2017
Atlantic
The Restaurants Hurt Most by Minimum-Wage Hikes

24 Apr 2017
Washington Post
Minimum wage hikes do close restaurants. Just not the ones you care about.

03 Mar 2017
Harvard Business Review
Do Search Ads Really Work?

03 Mar 2017
Wall Street Journal
Why We Don’t Value Flextime Enough

07 Feb 2017
Slate
The Prophet of Profit

13 Jan 2017
New York Times
Higher Minimum Wage May Have Losers

12 Dec 2016
Harvard Business Review
How Streaming Is Changing Music (Again)

17 Oct 2016
Harvard Business Review
How to Hire with Algorithms

04 Oct 2016
Marketwatch
Three ways to help your kid pick the right college

09 Sep 2016
New York Times
Airbnb Adopts Rules to Fight Discrimination by Its Hosts

14 Jun 2016
Washington Post
After Mass Shootings, Republicans Make It Easier for People to Get Guns

14 Jun 2016
New York Times
After Mass Shootings, It’s Often Easier to Buy a Gun

10 May 2016
WBUR: Radio Boston
How To Teach Ethics To Algorithms

25 Apr 2016
NPR
#AirbnbWhileBlack: How Hidden Bias Shapes The Sharing Economy

08 Apr 2016
Morning Consult
How to Spot a Monopolistic Search Engine

10 Dec 2015
Atlantic
Can Google Street View Images Predict Household Income?

27 Oct 2015
Washington Post
How Yelp plans to clean up one of the restaurant industry’s most dangerous flaws

22 Jul 2015
Vox
The behavioural economics of voluntary disclosure

29 Jun 2015
Wall Street Journal
Study Suggests Google Harms Consumers by Skewing Search Results

29 Jun 2015
Bloomberg News
High-Profile Study Turns Up the Antitrust Heat on Google

23 Mar 2015
Stateline
Cities Turn to Social Media to Police Restaurants

16 Feb 2015
VentureBeat
Yelp suggests its open data project could help end food poisoning

22 Jan 2015
Harvard Political Review
Food Safety in Numbers

16 Mar 2014
Forbes
Why Completely Trusting Enterprise Software Review Sites is a Bad Idea

24 Feb 2014
Forbes
Racial Discrimination in the Sharing Economy

10 Feb 2014
Telegraph
Airbnb users prejudiced against black property owners

28 Jan 2014
Harvard Crimson
HBS Working Paper Sparks Discussion About Discrimination in Online Marketplaces

27 Jan 2014
Time
Harvard Study Suggests Racial Bias Among Some Airbnb Renters Read more: Airbnb's NYC Renters May Be Racially Biased Says New Study

24 Jan 2014
Tnooz.com
Discrimination in P2P marketplaces: Do whites really make more money than blacks?

23 Jan 2014
American Public Media: Marketplace
Are black people treated differently on Airbnb?

23 Jan 2014
American Public Media: Marketplace
African-American hosts on Airbnb may make less on listings

21 Jan 2014
Verge
Study says black Airbnb hosts earn less than their white counterparts

21 Jan 2014
Business Insider
Harvard Study Suggests Airbnb Has A Racism Problem

21 Jan 2014
Los Angeles Times
Airbnb discrimination? Study finds black hosts charge less on average

17 Jan 2014
Boston Globe
Study of Airbnb.com Rental Site Suggests Online Marketplaces may Encourage Discrimination

04 Nov 2013
Washington Post
Surprise raises are more effective than higher salaries from the start, study finds

24 Oct 2013
Harvard Gazette
When 3+1 is more than 4

13 Oct 2013
Boston Globe
TripAdvisor, Amex in Deal on Reviews

03 Oct 2013
US News & World Report
Study: Rankings Affect Student Applications

27 Sep 2013
BBC News
Yelp admits a quarter of submitted reviews could be fake

25 Sep 2013
Wall Street Journal
Fake Reviews Are Everywhere. How Can We Catch Them?

24 Sep 2013
Marketwatch
20% of Yelp reviews are fake; New York’s move against fraudulent write-ups just scratches the surface

23 Sep 2013
WNYC
That Online Review May Really Be Too Good to Be True

18 Sep 2013
Shanghai Daily
Online Hotel Reviews Increasingly Popular

30 Aug 2013
Harvard Business Review
Research: Underdog Businesses Are More Likely to Post Fake Yelp Reviews

08 Aug 2013
Boston Globe
Study Finds Online Ratings Easily Overinflated

03 Aug 2013
Deccan Chronicle
Bed Bugs, Bad Service Begone, Thanks to Online Reviews

17 Jul 2013
Atlantic
How Yelp Might Clean Up the Restaurant Industry

28 Jun 2013
BuzzFeed
Is Yelp a Bully or Just Misunderstood?

13 Dec 2012
SmartMoney
Commenting Online? Call a Lawyer

05 Oct 2012
Harvard Magazine
HBS Study Finds Positive Yelp Reviews Boost Business

05 Jul 2012
British Academy Policy Centre
Michael Luca at Nudge and Beyond: Behavioural Science, Policy and Knowing What Works (VIDEO)

16 May 2012
Guardian
Amazon consumer book reviews as reliable as media experts

16 May 2012
Are Amazon Reviewers Usurping the Role of 'Professional' Critics?

07 Feb 2012
ReviewsReputation
Yelp Reviews Reputation Study by Harvard Busines School. Assistant Professor HBS Michael Luca (VIDEO)

01 Jan 2012
New York Times
Yelp! I Need Somebody

05 Oct 2011
Yelp
Harvard Study: Yelp Drives Demand for Independent Restaurants

04 Oct 2011
Why Positive Yelp Reviews Do More Than Nasty Ones

03 Oct 2011
Huffington Post
One-Star Bump On Yelp Leads To Big Revenue Boost, Study Finds

Additional Information

Curriculum Vitae

Curriculum Vitae

Areas of Interest

decision-making
electronic commerce
electronic markets
user-generated content
 More

Additional Topics

economics
education
incentives
information technology
market design
market institutions
marketing
social interactions
word of mouth

Industries

education industry
information
internet
marketing industry
media
restaurant
 Less

In The News

    • 28 Jul 2020
    • HBS Working Knowledge

    Racism and Digital Design: How Online Platforms Can Thwart Discrimination

    • 24 Aug 2020
    • HBS Working Knowledge

    How Much Will Remote Work Continue After the Pandemic?

    • 25 Oct 2020
    • Wall Street Journal

    How Consumers Really Use Online Reviews

    • 03 Dec 2020
    • Harvard Business School

    Faculty Books Published in 2020

    • 25 Mar 2021
    • Harvard Business School

    Steer Clear of the Blind Spots That Derail Experiments

→More News for Michael Luca

Michael Luca In the News

28 Jul 2020
HBS Working Knowledge
Racism and Digital Design: How Online Platforms Can Thwart Discrimination

24 Aug 2020
HBS Working Knowledge
How Much Will Remote Work Continue After the Pandemic?

25 Oct 2020
Wall Street Journal
How Consumers Really Use Online Reviews

03 Dec 2020
Harvard Business School
Faculty Books Published in 2020

25 Mar 2021
Harvard Business School
Steer Clear of the Blind Spots That Derail Experiments

05 Nov 2021
Harvard Business Review
Leaders: Stop Confusing Correlation with Causation

03 Jan 2022
Wall Street Journal
‘Get It Done’ Review: A Mindset for Motivation

06 Apr 2022
Harvard Business Review
How to Use Correlation to Make Predictions

10 Jun 2022
Washington Post
What the Research Really Says about American Immigration

17 Jun 2022
Wall Street Journal
In Defense of Online Anonymity

16 Aug 2022
Boston Globe
Harvard Study Suggests Anti-Asian Discrimination Spiked on Airbnb during COVID

21 Aug 2022
Center for Health Journalism
Coronavirus Files: CDC to Address Failures, Boosters Coming Soon

10 Oct 2022
Harvard Business Review
Ensuring Your Products Aren’t Used for Discrimination

23 Nov 2022
Wall Street Journal
The Sinister Logic of Hidden Online Fees

17 Jan 2019
Wall Street Journal
Shutdown Shock May Endure for Federal Workers

05 Nov 2018
Harvard Business Review
Using Experiments to Launch New Products

29 Oct 2018
HBS Working Knowledge
Hunting for a Hot Job in High Tech? Try 'Digitization Economist'

10 Oct 2018
Harvard Business Review
How Amazon’s Higher Wages Could Increase Productivity

06 Sep 2018
Washington Post
Starbucks, florists and other warning signs home prices are about to go up

15 Jun 2018
BBC
How customer complaints help companies

16 May 2018
Harvard Business Review
How Companies Can Use the Data They Collect to Further the Public Good

26 Mar 2018
Chicago Tribune
A cooling-off period on handgun purchases nationwide would save lives

20 Feb 2018
Wall Street Journal
Using Yelp to Find the Next Hot Neighborhood

13 Feb 2018
Bloomberg
Is America in a Retail Apocalypse? Ask Yelp

10 Jan 2018
Boston Globe
Time to end the debate and face facts: Minimum wage laws hurt the poor

08 Dec 2017
Wall Street Journal
How to Suppress Your Inner Scrooge

14 Nov 2017
Bloomberg
How That Yelp Review Could Complement Government Data: Eco Pulse

09 Nov 2017
Economist
A minority of gun owners have a veto over gun laws

08 Nov 2017
HBS Working Knowledge
Handgun Waiting Periods Prevent Hundreds of Homicides Each Year

31 Oct 2017
Harvard Business Review
Why COOs Should Think Like Behavioral Economists

17 Oct 2017
Bloomberg
Handgun Waiting Periods Actually Do Save Lives

16 Oct 2017
New York Times
750 Gun Deaths a Year Are Prevented by Waiting Periods, Study Finds

16 Oct 2017
Science
Gun waiting periods could save hundreds of lives a year, study says

06 Oct 2017
New York Times
Guns and the Soul of America

20 Sep 2017
Harvard Business Review
Lessons from Yelp’s Empirical Approach to Diversity

31 Aug 2017
Harvard Business Review
How Netflix’s Content Strategy Is Reshaping Movie Culture

26 Jul 2017
Washington Post
Faced with complaints of discrimination, Airbnb partners with NAACP to recruit black hosts

19 May 2017
Los Angeles Times
Minimum wage increases can kill businesses — if they already stink

09 May 2017
Wall Street Journal
The Minimum Wage Eats Restaurants

08 May 2017
NPR: All Things Considered
Restaurants With Low Yelp Ratings Suffer Under Higher Minimum Wages

27 Apr 2017
Economist
Higher minimum wages may make bad restaurants close

26 Apr 2017
Atlantic
The Restaurants Hurt Most by Minimum-Wage Hikes

26 Apr 2017
Atlantic
The Restaurants Hurt Most by Minimum-Wage Hikes

24 Apr 2017
Washington Post
Minimum wage hikes do close restaurants. Just not the ones you care about.

03 Mar 2017
Harvard Business Review
Do Search Ads Really Work?

03 Mar 2017
Wall Street Journal
Why We Don’t Value Flextime Enough

07 Feb 2017
Slate
The Prophet of Profit

13 Jan 2017
New York Times
Higher Minimum Wage May Have Losers

12 Dec 2016
Harvard Business Review
How Streaming Is Changing Music (Again)

17 Oct 2016
Harvard Business Review
How to Hire with Algorithms

04 Oct 2016
Marketwatch
Three ways to help your kid pick the right college

09 Sep 2016
New York Times
Airbnb Adopts Rules to Fight Discrimination by Its Hosts

14 Jun 2016
Washington Post
After Mass Shootings, Republicans Make It Easier for People to Get Guns

14 Jun 2016
New York Times
After Mass Shootings, It’s Often Easier to Buy a Gun

10 May 2016
WBUR: Radio Boston
How To Teach Ethics To Algorithms

25 Apr 2016
NPR
#AirbnbWhileBlack: How Hidden Bias Shapes The Sharing Economy

08 Apr 2016
Morning Consult
How to Spot a Monopolistic Search Engine

10 Dec 2015
Atlantic
Can Google Street View Images Predict Household Income?

27 Oct 2015
Washington Post
How Yelp plans to clean up one of the restaurant industry’s most dangerous flaws

22 Jul 2015
Vox
The behavioural economics of voluntary disclosure

29 Jun 2015
Wall Street Journal
Study Suggests Google Harms Consumers by Skewing Search Results

29 Jun 2015
Bloomberg News
High-Profile Study Turns Up the Antitrust Heat on Google

23 Mar 2015
Stateline
Cities Turn to Social Media to Police Restaurants

16 Feb 2015
VentureBeat
Yelp suggests its open data project could help end food poisoning

22 Jan 2015
Harvard Political Review
Food Safety in Numbers

16 Mar 2014
Forbes
Why Completely Trusting Enterprise Software Review Sites is a Bad Idea

24 Feb 2014
Forbes
Racial Discrimination in the Sharing Economy

10 Feb 2014
Telegraph
Airbnb users prejudiced against black property owners

28 Jan 2014
Harvard Crimson
HBS Working Paper Sparks Discussion About Discrimination in Online Marketplaces

27 Jan 2014
Time
Harvard Study Suggests Racial Bias Among Some Airbnb Renters Read more: Airbnb's NYC Renters May Be Racially Biased Says New Study

24 Jan 2014
Tnooz.com
Discrimination in P2P marketplaces: Do whites really make more money than blacks?

23 Jan 2014
American Public Media: Marketplace
Are black people treated differently on Airbnb?

23 Jan 2014
American Public Media: Marketplace
African-American hosts on Airbnb may make less on listings

21 Jan 2014
Verge
Study says black Airbnb hosts earn less than their white counterparts

21 Jan 2014
Business Insider
Harvard Study Suggests Airbnb Has A Racism Problem

21 Jan 2014
Los Angeles Times
Airbnb discrimination? Study finds black hosts charge less on average

17 Jan 2014
Boston Globe
Study of Airbnb.com Rental Site Suggests Online Marketplaces may Encourage Discrimination

04 Nov 2013
Washington Post
Surprise raises are more effective than higher salaries from the start, study finds

24 Oct 2013
Harvard Gazette
When 3+1 is more than 4

13 Oct 2013
Boston Globe
TripAdvisor, Amex in Deal on Reviews

03 Oct 2013
US News & World Report
Study: Rankings Affect Student Applications

27 Sep 2013
BBC News
Yelp admits a quarter of submitted reviews could be fake

25 Sep 2013
Wall Street Journal
Fake Reviews Are Everywhere. How Can We Catch Them?

24 Sep 2013
Marketwatch
20% of Yelp reviews are fake; New York’s move against fraudulent write-ups just scratches the surface

23 Sep 2013
WNYC
That Online Review May Really Be Too Good to Be True

18 Sep 2013
Shanghai Daily
Online Hotel Reviews Increasingly Popular

30 Aug 2013
Harvard Business Review
Research: Underdog Businesses Are More Likely to Post Fake Yelp Reviews

08 Aug 2013
Boston Globe
Study Finds Online Ratings Easily Overinflated

03 Aug 2013
Deccan Chronicle
Bed Bugs, Bad Service Begone, Thanks to Online Reviews

17 Jul 2013
Atlantic
How Yelp Might Clean Up the Restaurant Industry

28 Jun 2013
BuzzFeed
Is Yelp a Bully or Just Misunderstood?

13 Dec 2012
SmartMoney
Commenting Online? Call a Lawyer

05 Oct 2012
Harvard Magazine
HBS Study Finds Positive Yelp Reviews Boost Business

05 Jul 2012
British Academy Policy Centre
Michael Luca at Nudge and Beyond: Behavioural Science, Policy and Knowing What Works (VIDEO)

16 May 2012
Guardian
Amazon consumer book reviews as reliable as media experts

16 May 2012
Are Amazon Reviewers Usurping the Role of 'Professional' Critics?

07 Feb 2012
ReviewsReputation
Yelp Reviews Reputation Study by Harvard Busines School. Assistant Professor HBS Michael Luca (VIDEO)

01 Jan 2012
New York Times
Yelp! I Need Somebody

05 Oct 2011
Yelp
Harvard Study: Yelp Drives Demand for Independent Restaurants

04 Oct 2011
Why Positive Yelp Reviews Do More Than Nasty Ones

03 Oct 2011
Huffington Post
One-Star Bump On Yelp Leads To Big Revenue Boost, Study Finds

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