Psychology studies of the effects of playing video games have found emotional responses and physical reactions associated with reinforced violent and anti-social attitudes. It is not clear, however, whether these markers are associated with increases in one's preferences for anti-social...

Starting in 1998, the E-Rate program has provided $2.25 billion to subsidize Internet access in schools and libraries serving low income populations in the US. I analyze the effect of E-Rate subsidies on educational outcomes for Texas high schools over the 1994-2003 time period. Consistent with...

This paper demonstrates how, by introducing a generic version of its previously-patented product, a branded firm can influence the equilibrium in the generic segment of the market for the product. This in turn can increase the firm’s profits from selling the branded version. We then use...

Peer influence through word-of-mouth (WOM) plays an important role in many information systems but identification of causal effects is challenging. We identify causal WOM effects in the empirical setting of game adoption in a social network for gamers by exploiting differences in individuals'...

This paper investigates how video game publishers' choice of game release date is affected by the expected level of competition within the game's product niche. We identify game niches by genre, age-appropriateness, a four week window cohort, publisher and console system. Our analysis is based...

Recent interest in the Internet as a medium for commerce has raised questions about the usefulness of branding on the World Wide Web. Examines whether consumers use brands as sources of information when shopping on the Internet. Applying theory from the economics of information, predicts that...