In this article, we propose a new data-analytic approach to measure firms' dyadic business proximity. Specifically, our method analyzes the unstructured texts that describe firms' businesses using the statistical learning technique of topic modeling, and constructs a novel business proximity...

Recently, mobile applications have offered users the option to share their location information with friends. Using data from a major location-based social networking application in China, we estimate an empirical model of restaurant discovery and observational learning. The unique feature of...

In recent years, there has been stellar growth of location-based/enabled social networks in which people can “check-in” to physical venues they are visiting and share with friends. In this article, we hypothesize that the “check-ins” made by friends help users learn the potential payoff...