Social media networks (SMN) such as Facebook and Twitter are infamous for facilitating the spread of potentially false rumors. Although it has been argued that SMN enable their users to identify and challenge false rumors through collective efforts to make sense of unverified information—a...

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...