Commerce depends on buyers and sellers fulfilling their contractual obligations; mechanisms inducing such performance are essential to well-functioning markets. Internet-enabled reputation mechanisms that collect and disseminate consumer feedback have emerged as prominent means for inducing...

Online reputation mechanisms are emerging as a promising alternative to more established mechanisms for promoting trust and cooperative behavior, such as legally enforceable contracts. As information technology dramatically reduces the cost of accumulating, processing and disseminating consumer...

Platform-specific digital tokens are becoming increasingly common with the proliferation of initial coin offerings (ICOs). In addition to a novel financing mechanism, such tokens can help address the coordination problem that is common in network adoption. We develop a model to investigate the...

As search costs and other coordination costs decline, theory predictsthat firms should optimally increase the number of suppliers with whichthey do business. Despite recent declines in these costs due toinformation technology, there is little evidence of an increase in thenumber of suppliers...

Information systems can serve as intermediaries between the buyers andthe sellers in a market, creating an "electronic marketplace"that lowers the buyers' cost to acquire information about seller pricesand product offerings. As a result, electronic marketplaces reduce theinefficiencies caused by...