Publications
Publications
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- 2022
- Working Paper
Getting on the Map: The Impact of Online Listings on Business Performance
By: Michael Luca, Abhishek Nagaraj and Gauri Subramani
We evaluate the extent to which small businesses maintain an online presence, looking at restaurant listings on a major online review platform. While the majority of restaurants have an online presence, we find that roughly 18 percent in our sample have no presence as...
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- July 7, 2022
- Other Article
Are Online Prices Higher Because of Pricing Algorithms?
By: Zach Y. Brown and Alexander J. MacKay
This article reviews recent work examining pricing strategies of major online retailers and the potential effects of pricing algorithms. We describe how pricing algorithms can lead to higher prices in a number of ways, even if some characteristics of these algorithms...
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- 2022
- Working Paper
Consumer Reviews and Regulation: Evidence from NYC Restaurants
By: Chiara Farronato and Georgios Zervas
We investigate the informativeness of hygiene signals in online reviews, and their effect on consumer choice and restaurant hygiene. We first extract signals of hygiene from Yelp. Among all dimensions that regulators monitor through mandated restaurant inspections, we...
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- December 2021 (Revised September 2022)
- Case
Moleskine: Daniela Riccardi Turns the Page
By: Ryan Raffaelli and Sarah Gulick
Newly appointed CEO Daniela Riccardi needed to develop and present an action plan to the board of the company that owned Moleskine. Riccardi was hired because Moleskine had recently overextended its reach and needed more focus and discipline. Having previously served...
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- November 2021
- Article
Ratings, Reviews, and the Marketing of New Products
By: Itay P. Fainmesser, Dominique Olié Lauga and Elie Ofek
We study how user-generated content (UGC) about new products impacts a firm's advertising and pricing decisions and the effect on profits and market dynamics. We construct a two-period model where consumers value quality and are heterogeneous in their taste for the new...
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- March 2021
- Case
The U.S. Home Improvement Sector in 2020
By: José Alvarez and David Lane
Provides an overview of the U.S. home improvement sector in 2020, reviewing sources of growth in the decade ending in 2020, with special attention to the impact of COVID-19 on market leaders Home Depot and Lowe’s and the spike in online revenues for both. Also noted...
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- November–December 2020
- Article
Does Gender Matter? The Effect of Management Responses on Reviewing Behavior
By: Davide Proserpio, Isamar Troncoso and Francesca Valsesia
We study the effect of management responses on the reviewing behavior of self-identified female and male reviewers. Using data from Tripadvisor, we show that after hotels begin to respond to reviews, the probability that a negative review comes from a self-identified...
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- April 2020
- Article
Collective Emotions
By: Amit Goldenberg, David Garcia, Eran Halperin and James J. Gross
When analyzing situations in which multiple people are experiencing emotions together—whether the emotions are positive or negative and whether the situations are online or offline—we are intuitively drawn to the emotions of each individual in the situation. However,...
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- March 2020
- Case
Thingtesting: Launching a Brand Discovery and Testing Digital Community
By: Ayelet Israeli and Jill Avery
Thingtesting, a brand discovery and testing digital community devoted to uncovering and exploring direct-to-consumer brands, had just received seed funding and was contemplating a second year of growth. The new year brought many challenges, as founder Jenny Gyllander...
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Keywords:
Influencer Marketing;
Monetization;
Female Ceo;
Female Entrepreneur;
Female Protagonist;
Influencers;
Influencer;
Direct-to-consumer;
Marketing;
Brands and Branding;
Marketing Strategy;
Venture Capital;
Entrepreneurship;
Marketing Communications;
Consumer Products Industry;
Financial Services Industry;
Advertising Industry;
London;
United Kingdom;
United States;
Europe;
North America
- 2020
- Working Paper
Consumer Protection in an Online World: An Analysis of Occupational Licensing
By: Chiara Farronato, Andrey Fradkin, Bradley Larsen and Erik Brynjolfsson
We study the effects of occupational licensing on consumer choices and market outcomes in a large online platform for residential home services. We exploit exogenous variation in the time at which licenses are displayed on the platform to identify the causal effects of...
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- October 14, 2019
- Article
Designing Better Online Review Systems
By: Geoff Donaker, Hyunjin Kim and Michael Luca
Online reviews are transforming the way consumers choose products and services of all sorts. We turn to TripAdvisor to plan a vacation, Zocdoc to find a doctor, and Yelp to choose a new restaurant. Reviews can create value for buyers and sellers alike, but only if they...
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- 2017
- Working Paper
Nowcasting the Local Economy: Using Yelp Data to Measure Economic Activity
By: Edward L. Glaeser, Hyunjin Kim and Michael Luca
Can new data sources from online platforms help to measure local economic activity? Government datasets from agencies such as the U.S. Census Bureau provide the standard measures of economic activity at the local level. However, these statistics typically appear only...
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- November 2016 (Revised May 2017)
- Case
The Black List
By: Henry McGee and Sarah McAra
Franklin Leonard founded The Black List in 2005 as an innovative approach to identifying potential hit movie scripts via crowdsourcing. As the annual Black List proved to hold the scripts of some of Hollywood’s most successful films, from “Slumdog Millionaire” to...
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- September 21, 2016
- Article
For Better Online Product Reviews, Pay the Reviewers
- Other Article
Online Discounting: Who is Leading the Race to the Bottom?
By: Ayelet Israeli, Eric Anderson and Anne Coughlan
A short review of the finidings in: Israeli, Ayelet, Eric Anderson, and Anne Coughlan. "Minimum Advertised Pricing: Patterns of Violation in Competitive Retail Markets." Marketing Science 35, no. 4 (July–August 2016): 539–564.
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Keywords:
Pricing;
Price Policies;
Pricing Policies;
Discounting;
Retailing;
Retailing Industry;
Minimum Advertised Price;
Ecommerce;
E-Commerce Strategy;
Price;
Distribution Channels;
Distribution;
Digital Marketing;
E-commerce;
Retail Industry;
Technology Industry;
Advertising Industry;
United States
- August 2015
- Case
Yabbly (A)
By: Shikhar Ghosh and Christopher Payton
In November 2013, with less than 10 months of cash on hand, Tom Leung, the founder and CEO of Yabbly, must decide where to focus his resources. His startup, a question-and-answer application for shopping decisions, had benefited from a strong showing at the SXSW...
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- Article
Positioning Brands Against Large Competitors to Increase Sales
By: Neeru Paharia, Jill Avery and Anat Keinan
We explore the effect of having a large dominant competitor and show the conditions under which focusing on a competitive threat, rather than hiding it, can actually help a brand. We demonstrate through lab and field studies that highlighting a large competitor's size...
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- September 2014 (Revised June 2017)
- Case
Google Inc. in 2014
By: Benjamin Edelman and Thomas R. Eisenmann
Describes Google's history, business model, governance structure, corporate culture, and processes for managing innovation. Reviews Google's recent strategic initiatives and the threats they pose to selected competitors. Asks what Google should do next.
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- September 2014
- Case
Google Inc. in 2014 (Abridged)
By: Benjamin Edelman and Thomas R. Eisenmann
Describes Google's history, business model, governance structure, corporate culture, and processes for managing innovation. Reviews Google's recent strategic initiatives and the threats they pose to Yahoo, Microsoft, and others. Asks what Google should do next.
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- 2014
- Article
Drivers and Dynamics of Online Word of Mouth
By: Frank Nagle and Christoph Riedl