Recent developments in computer networks have driven the cost of distributing information virtually to zero, creating extraordinary opportunities for sharing product evaluations. The authors present pricing and subsidy mechanisms that operate through a computerized market and induce the...

If profit maximization is the objective of a firm, new information about quality should affect firm behavior only through its effects on market demand. I consider an alternate model in which suppliers are motivated by a desire to perform well in addition to profit. The introduction of quality...

Firms' incentives to manufacture biased user reviews impede review usefulness. We examine the differences in reviews for a given hotel between two sites: Expedia.com (only a customer can post a review) and TripAdvisor.com (anyone can post). We argue that the net gains from promotional reviewing...

I study a dynamic economy featuring adverse selection in asset markets. Borrowing-constrained entrepreneurs sell past projects to finance new investment, but asymmetric information creates a lemons problem. I show that this friction is equivalent to a tax on financial transactions. The implicit...

Market outcomes depend on the quality of information available to its participants. We measure the effect of information disclosure on market outcomes using a large-scale field experiment that randomly discloses quality information in wholesale automobile auctions. We argue that buyers in this...

This paper presents a dynamic model, inspired by evolutionary game theory, of how standards and norms emerge in decentralized economies. It shows that standardization outcomes depend on adopters' attitudes to problems caused by incompatibility. If individuals display aversion to incompatibility,...

We present a dynamic model of adverse selection to examine the interactions between new and used goods markets. We find that the used market never shuts down, the volume of trade can be large, and distortions are lower than previously thought. New cars prices can be higher under adverse...

We document three remarkable features of the Opower program, in which social comparison-based home energy reports are repeatedly mailed to more than six million households nationwide. First, initial reports cause high-frequency "action and backsliding," but these cycles attenuate over time....

Implementation theory assumes that participants' choices are rational, in the sense of being consistent with the maximization of a context- independent preference. The paper investigates implementation under complete information when individuals' choices need not be rational.

We investigate Schelling's hypothesis that payoff-irrelevant labels ("cues") can influence the outcomes of bargaining games with communication. In our experimental games, players negotiate over the division of a surplus by claiming valuable objects that have payoff-irrelevant spatial locations....