The use of sellers' personal photos online is ubiquitous in sharing economy platforms such as Airbnb. These photos generate immediate inferences (first impressions) of people's trustworthiness that affect online transactions. In this paper, we use a structural equation model (SEM) to examine the...

We propose a structural econometric model in which listings in an Airbnb market differ not only in their attributes, but also in their seller's characteristics as trust indicators. Applying the model to Stockholm's Airbnb market reveals that hosts' attributes significantly affect market...

Natural and agricultural landscapes provide a wide range of ecosystem services, among them aesthetic landscapes. Since these services have no market value, land use decision makers often ignore them in favor of urban sprawl, with the result that resource allocation may be sub-optimal. Here we...

'Sharing economy' platforms such as Airbnb have recently flourished in the tourism industry. The prominent appearance of sellers' photos on these platforms motivated our study. We suggest that the presence of these photos can have a significant impact on guests' decision making. Specifically, we...