We study the use of and response to cheap talk by firms and their consumers, focusing on unverifiable promises of charitable donations on eBay. For transactions during March 2005 - May 2006, cheap talk listings have lower sales probabilities but sell at higher prices when they are successful....

Quality certification programs are used to improve consumers’ ability to identify high-quality products or sellers in markets with information asymmetries. Using data from eBay UK’s online marketplace, we study how certification’s benefits vary with market- and seller-level attributes,...

For the 10%-15% of American married couples who experience reproductive problems, in vitro fertilization (IVF) is the leading technologically advanced treatment procedure. Two important issues are at the center of policy debates regarding IVF markets: 1) expanding access to infertility...

We conduct a field experiment at a nonprofit organization's online store to study how demand changes when consumers' purchases generate revenue for a charitable cause. Consumers respond strongly when their purchases generate small donations by an anonymous outside group, but responses are...

Consumers respond positively to products tied to charity, particularly from sellers that are relatively new and hence have limited alternative means for assuring quality. We establish this result using data from a diverse group of eBay sellers who individually “experiment” with charity by...

We present a model of charity auctions in which all bidders receive a benefit from the host charity raising revenue. Bidding behavior reflects two conflicting incentives: Bids may be inflated because of private benefits from charitable giving, or bids could be depressed by the public goods...

Purpose – To explain the details and implications of a September 9, 2014 federal indictment, US v. Robert Bandfield, the first time a Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA) violation has been charged as an “overt act” in furtherance of a tax conspiracy and securities fraud....