We examine two questions: Does the roundness or precision of prices bias magnitude judgments? If so, do these biased judgments affect buyer behavior? Results from five studies suggest that buyers underestimate the magnitudes of precise prices. We term this the precision effect. The first three...

Newspaper critics’ movie reviews are often used by potential movie viewers as signals of expert quality assessment. We investigate the existence and revenue impact of racial bias in these reviews. Using an expansive, novel dataset spanning 2003–2007, we find ratings for movies with a black...

Concerns over grade inflation and disparities in grading practices have led institutions of higher education in the United States to adopt various grading reforms. An element common to several reforms is providing information on the distribution of grades in different courses. The main aims of...

In 2008 the faculty senate of Cornell University’s College of Agriculture and Life Sciences (CALS) decided to publish mean student evaluations of teaching online. The stated goal of the policy was to “provide useful information to students as they design their program of study.” Using...

We show that the public's response to terrorist threats can have unintended consequences that rival the attacks themselves in severity. Driving fatalities increased significantly after the 11 September 2001 terrorist attacks, events that prompted many travellers to substitute road transportation...

Newspaper critics' movie reviews are often used by potential movie viewers as signals of expert quality assessment. In this paper, we assess if there is any racial bias in these critics' reviews, and if so, what impact these biases have on viewer demand. To do this, we develop a dataset that...

We study dual agency in residential real estate, where the same agent/agency represents both the buyer and seller. We assess the extent to which dual agency suffers from an inherent conflict of interest, where the dual agent furthers the interest of one client at the expense of the other...

Researchers have recently developed models for determining which market conduct best describes observed data. The authors apply these techniques from the 'new empirical industrial organization' literature to the competitive product line pricing decision, where a firm strategically prices its...

This work, set in the "new empirical industrial organization" framework (Bresnahan, 1987), examines firm-level demand-based and cost-based explanations for entry and accommodation strategies in the U.S. photographic film industry. I first estimate preentry and postentry market structures. Then,...