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作者：Hollenbeck, Brett
作者单位：University of California System; University of California Los Angeles
摘要：This article considers the rapid spread of chain firms in many industries. The conventional explanation is that chains generate economies of scale in costs. Alternatively, the structure of chains may enhance demand by helping firms develop reputations, among other reasons. I quantify the value of these explanations empirically with a large, detailed data set on the hotel industry, combining a reduced-form analysis of revenues with a structural estimation of firm costs. Revenue analysis shows s...
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作者：Hendel, Igal; Lach, Saul; Spiegel, Yossi
作者单位：Northwestern University; Hebrew University of Jerusalem; Centre for Economic Policy Research - UK; Tel Aviv University
摘要：We study a consumer boycott on cottage cheese, organized in Israel on Facebook in the summer of 2011 following a steep price increase since 2006. The boycott led to an immediate decline in prices, which remain low even six years later. We find that (i) demand at the start of the boycott would have been 30% higher but for the boycott, (ii) own- and especially cross-price elasticities increased substantially after the boycott, and (iii) post-boycott prices are substantially below the levels impl...
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作者：Campbell, Arthur; Mayzlin, Dina; Shin, Jiwoong
作者单位：Monash University; University of Southern California; Yale University
摘要：We model the incentives of individuals to engage in word of mouth (or buzz) about a product, and how a firm may strategically influence this process through its information release and advertising strategies. Individuals receive utility by improving how others perceive them. A firm restricts access to information, advertising may crowd out word of mouth, and a credible commitment not to engage in advertising is valuable for a firm.
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作者：Wang, Chengsi
作者单位：University of Mannheim; Monash University
摘要：This article examines a monopoly firm's incentive to disclose information through advertising when consumers can choose between buying immediately and searching for additional information. Because sales drop when search reveals low match values to consumers, the firm has an incentive to deter search. We show that partial information disclosure emerges as a useful tool for search deterrence when search costs are low. Informative advertising and consumer search can be viewed as complements in pr...
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作者：Peters, Bettina; Roberts, Mark J.; Van Anh Vuong; Fryges, Helmut
作者单位：Leibniz Association; Zentrum fur Europaische Wirtschaftsforschung (ZEW); Pennsylvania Commonwealth System of Higher Education (PCSHE); Pennsylvania State University; Pennsylvania State University - University Park; National Bureau of Economic Research; University of Cologne; University of Tasmania
摘要：This article estimates a dynamic structural model of discrete Research and Development (R&D) investment and quantifies its cost and long-run benefit for German manufacturing firms. The model incorporates linkages between R&D choice, product and process innovations, and future productivity and profits. The long-run payoff to R&D is the proportional difference in expected firm value generated by the investment. It increases firm value by 6.7% for the median firm in high-tech industries but only ...
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作者：Taylor, Greg
作者单位：University of Oxford
摘要：Consumers tend to browse products they are interested in and firms often invest resources in selling to them. A consequence, I show, is that it is optimal for a firm to increase the cost of browsing (even though this drives away potential customers) because doing so allows it to target sales efforts at those consumers most likely to buy. Despite representing pure waste, this can increase welfare by facilitating efficient allocation of sales or marketing resources. For a similar reason, consume...
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作者：Katona, Zsolt; Knee, Jonathan A.; Sarvary, Miklos
作者单位：University of California System; University of California Berkeley; Columbia University
摘要：This article studies competition in contests with a focus on the news industry that is increasingly influenced by social media. The model assumes publishers to pick a single topic from a large pool based on the topics' prior success probabilities, thereby chasing potentially successful topics. Firms that publish topics that become successful divide a reward which can change with the number of competing firms and the number of successful topics. The results show that share structures can be cat...
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作者：Gross, Daniel P.
作者单位：Harvard University; National Bureau of Economic Research
摘要：Performance feedback is ubiquitous in competitive settings where new products are developed. This article introduces a fundamental tension between incentives and improvement in the provision of feedback. Using a sample of 4294 commercial logo design tournaments, I show that feedback reduces participation but improves the quality of subsequent submissions, with an ambiguous effect on high-quality output. To evaluate this trade-off, I develop a procedure to estimate agents' effort costs and simu...
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作者：Lubensky, Dmitry
作者单位：Indiana University System; Indiana University Bloomington
摘要：Manufacturers frequently post nonbinding public price recommendations, but neither the rationale for this practice nor its impact on prices is well understood. I develop a model in which recommendations signal a manufacturer's production cost to searching consumers, who then form beliefs about retail prices. Increasing search makes consumers reject offers for the manufacturer's and competitors' products more often, and I show that both consumers and the manufacturer prefer more search when the...
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作者：Pollrich, Martin
作者单位：Humboldt University of Berlin
摘要：I study optimal contracting where the principal can verify the agent's private information via auditing but cannot contractually commit to audit frequency. Optimal contracting requires sophisticated communication: the agent reports his information to a mediator, who randomly selects a contract. Mediation allows for fine-tuning the information flow, because the principal observes the selected contract but not the agent's report. Simply offering a menu of contracts is, in general, not optimal. I...
