We study reputations with imperfect audit and a reputation market. The main result shows the existence of a separating equilibrium in the reputation market, which contrasts with Tadelis [Tadelis, S., 2002, The market for reputations as an incentive mechanism, Journal of Political Economy 110(4),...

Online communities provide a social sphere for people to share information and knowledge. While information sharing is becoming a ubiquitous online phenomenon, how to ensure information quality or induce quality content, however, remains a challenge due to the anonymity of commentators. This...

This paper designs an optimal mechanism for selling a set of commonly ranked objects. Although buyers rank these objects in the same order, the rates at which their valuations change for a less-preferred object might be different. Four stylized cases are identified according to this difference:...

Keyword advertising, or sponsored search, is one of the most successful advertising models on the Internet. One distinctive feature of keyword auctions is that they enable advertisers to adjust their bids and rankings dynamically, and the payoffs are realized in real time. We capture this unique...

We examine how the system of “federalism, Chinese style” functions in the context of land allocation. China’s land laws give provision of land a central role in local officials’ growth promotion strategies. Requisitions of farmland by local authorities have engendered significant rural...

Fresh agricultural commodities have been entering the era of network marketing. However, the coverage population is still relatively small. In this paper, more than 400 online shopping customer survey data are statistically analyzed based on perceived risk multidimensional model by factor...

Search engines commonly use “sponsored linksâ€, where certain advertisers’ links are promoted to be placed above others in return for monetary payment. It is natural to assume that all providers value a higher ranked placement more than lower ranked ones. Then how should the...

The two leading online consumer-to-consumer platforms use very different revenue models: eBay.com in the United States uses a brokerage model in which sellers pay eBay on a transaction basis, whereas Taobao.com in China uses an advertising model in which sellers can use basic platform service...

Online retailing is dominated by a channel structure in which a retailer either buys products from competing manufacturers and resells to consumers (wholesale scheme) or lets manufacturers directly sell to consumers on its platform for a commission (platform scheme), and is characterized by easy...