Provides original sociological research on the development of consumer credit scoring in the United States and its links to subprime mortgage finance.

Research on innovation adoption has suffered from a bias towards understanding the factors that affect the dichotomous adoption/non-adoption decision. Much less attention is devoted to the question why potential adopters fail to progress to the adoption stage from earlier stages in the decision...

Trademarks are indeed about information, but trademark doctrine misunderstands trademarks’ information function. Trademark doctrine takes a broadcast view in a networked world. Rather than a world where a single source transmits messages to a passive public, we live in a world where many...

The business world has moved from using trademarks — simple symbols identifying products — to brands — rich symbols that feed business strategy. At the same time, networked and empowered consumers are using brands, brand language, and branding strategies to make decisions about what they...

This paper assesses why it’s important for businesses to make the commitment to engage in an effective e-commerce strategy. In a tough economy like the one we are currently experiencing, engaging in the pursuit of internet sales is a legitimate way for businesses to grow their market share. In...

This article, a contribution to the ‘proto-industrialisation’ debate, examines the relative advantages of urban and rural locations for cloth manufacturing in later-medieval England and the Low Countries. From the 11th to the mid-14th century, when the English cloth trade began its seemingly...

Even before the global crisis, the Italian economy was in difficulties internationally, but slow growth and a declining share of world trade were accompanied by a perceptible process of manufacturing transformation. This paper, using data from the Bank of Italy�s survey of manufacturers,...

Product quality is often unobservable ex-ante and consumers rely on experts’ judgments, sometimes coming under the form of ratings or awards. Do awards affect consumers’ choices or they are conferred to the most popular products? To disentangle this issue, we use data of the most important...

This paper studies content strategies for online publishers of digital information goods. It examines sampling strategies and compares their performance to paid content and free content strategies. A sampling strategy, where some of the content is offered for free and consumers are charged for...

Product quality is often unobservable ex-ante and consumers rely on experts’ judgments, sometimes coming under the form of ratings or awards. Do awards affect consumers’ choices or they are conferred to the most popular products? To disentangle this issue, we use data of the most important...