Price comparison websites, where consumers can compare prices at a search cost that is close to zero, have become increasingly common around the world. Using daily information on prices, click-throughs, and the number of retailers for a sample of consumer electronics and durable goods over a...

Data on sales of memory modules are used to explore several aspects of e-retail demand. There is a strong relationship between e-retail sales to a given state and sales tax rates that apply to purchases from offline retailers. This suggests that there is substantial substitution between online...

Is online retail a complement or substitute to local offline economies? This paper provides the first evidence that consumers use time saved from online retail to increase their trips for time-intensive services like coffee shops. I use new, detailed data on the daily transactions of millions of...

This article examines how the consumer's search cost and filtering on a retail platform affect the platform, the third-party sellers, and the consumers. We show that, given the platform's percentage referral fee, a lower search cost can either increase or lower the platform's profit. By...

Advances in online technologies and bandwidth availability have opened new vistas for online distribution of digital goods. But potential benefits for consumers are juxtaposed against challenges for retailers of such goods. Here we investigate one type of digital experience good - music - whose...