This paper examines the informativeness of consumer information networks and their effect on price competition between firms. Under the proposed information mechanism, consumers share their initial information with the members of their network and as such become better informed. The main result...

In markets with search frictions, consumers can acquire information about goods either through costly search or from friends via word-of-mouth (WOM) communication. How do sellers’ market power react to a very large increase in the number of consumers’ friends with whom they engage in WOM?...

Consumers can acquire information through their own search efforts or through their social network. Information diffusion via word-of-mouth communication leads to some consumers free-riding on their “friends” and less information acquisition via active search. Free-riding also has an...

We study the efficient allocation of buyers in the presence of recommender systems. A recommender system affects the market in two ways: (i) it creates value by reducing product uncertainty for the customers and hence (ii) its recommendations can be offered as add-ons, which generates...

We study optimal pricing in the presence of recommender systems. A recommender system affects the market in two ways: (i) it creates value by reducing product uncertainty for the customers and hence (ii) its recommendations can be offered as add-ons which generate informational externalities....

This paper considers duopolistic firms targeting informative messages to consumers who share information locally with their neighbors in the network graph. A monopolist targets efficiently by sending messages to a parsimonious set of nodes that leave the whole population informed either directly...

A firm’s choices can shape patterns of consumer communication about its product. This paper examines the problem for a firm that can both set price and target sales when selling a product of hidden, exogenous quality over two sales rounds to consumers who share information locally with their...

The Web is the largest human information construct in history transforming our society. How can we understand, measure and model the Web evolution in order to design effective policies and optimize its social benefit? Early measurements of the Internet traffic and the Web graph indicated the...

This is a PDF file of ‘The Financial Judgment and Decision Making Process of Women: The Role of Negative Feelings' slides from a presentation at the Third Annual Meeting of the Academy of Behavioral Finance & Economics, September 21-23, 2011, UCLA, Los Angeles, CA.This conference presentation...

By tracing the history of the links of financialization to consumer behaviors and marketer actions in the 20th century, this paper aims to show that consumer market phenomena are often shaped by the imperatives of finance. The paper employs selective historical overviews, mainly focusing on the...