The article is devoted to investigating some fundamentals about a residue cracking gasification (RCG) process for petroleum residues which integrates the catalytic cracking of the residue and the gasification of the cracking-generated coke. Three heat carrier particles were tested to show their...

The format of pricing contracts varies substantially across business contexts, a major variable being whether a contract imposes a fixed fee payment. This paper examines how the use of the fixed fee in pricing contracts affects market outcomes of a manufacturer-retailer channel. Standard...

"Behavior-based personalization" has gained popularity in recent years, whereby businesses offer personalized products based on consumers' purchase histories. This paper highlights two perils of behavior-based personalization in competitive markets. First, although purchase histories reveal...

It is puzzling that firms often continue to invest in product development projects when they should know that demand will be low. We argue that bad products are hard to kill because firms face an inherent conflict when designing managers' incentives. Rewarding success encourages managers to...

Microloans, also known as microfinancing, peer-to-peer lending, and crowdfunding, started out as a means for individuals, such as impoverished borrowers who lack collateral and underprivileged women in third world countries, to provide for themselves. The way microloan markets operate is quite...

Two-sided exchange networks (such as eBay.com) often advertise their number of users, presumably to encourage further participation. However, these networks differ markedly on how they advertise their user base. Some highlight the number of sellers, some emphasize the number of buyers, and...

Mere observation of others' choices can be informative about product quality. This paper develops an individual-level dynamic model of observational learning and applies it to a novel data set from the U.S. kidney market, where transplant candidates on a waiting list sequentially decide whether...

This paper studies optimal product line design when consumers need to incur costly deliberation to uncover their valuations for quality. To induce deliberation, a firm must maintain quality dispersion and cut the price of the high-end product so that consumers are motivated to deliberate in the...