Online reviews have profound impacts on firm success in terms of sales volume and how much customers are willing to pay, yet firms remain highly dependent on customers' voluntary contributions. A popular way to increase the number of online reviews is to use product testing programs, which offer...

A lack of platform-level competition among digital marketplaces can result in socially inefficient platform design and meaningful welfare losses, even independent of actively anticompetitive behavior. To illustrate the first-order effects platform design can have on competitive outcomes, I...

A lack of platform-level competition among digital marketplaces can result in socially inefficient platform design and meaningful welfare losses, even independent of actively anticompetitive behavior. To illustrate the first-order effects platform design can have on competitive outcomes, I...

Consumer reviews, especially those expressing concerns of product quality, are crucial for the credibility of online platforms. However, reviews that criticize a product or service may also dissuade buyers from using the platform, creating an incentive to blur the visibility of critical reviews....

"There is a large knowledge gap in the market today between business strategy and experimentation. People resort to reading growth hacker blogs or going to meetups or eventually asking consultants for help. This book contains a library of techniques and specific guidance on how to rapidly test...

Online reviews could, in principle, greatly improve consumers' ability to evaluate products. However, the authenticity of online user reviews remains a concern; firms have an incentive to manufacture positive reviews for their own products and negative reviews for their rivals. In this paper, we...

Der aktuelle Rechtsstreit zwischen Ritter Sport und der Stiftung Warentest beschädigt beide Parteien. Verliert das Testsiegel an Glaubwürdigkeit, wird es für Produzenten qualitativ hochwertiger Waren schwieriger, ihren Reservationspreis durchzusetzen. Das kann langfristig zu einer...

We propose a structural model to study the effect of online product reviews on consumer purchases of experiential products. Such purchases are characterized by limited repeat purchase behavior of the same product item (such as a book title), but significant past usage experience with other...

Cover -- Einleitung -- Forschungsansatz, Methodik und Fragestellung -- Verbraucherpolitik -- Konsumtionsregime -- Über den Forschungsstand -- Aufbau der Arbeit -- Quellen -- Teil I Verbraucherpolitischer Wildwuchs nach Kriegsende und die Gründung der Arbeitsgemeinschaft der...

Online reviews could, in principle, greatly improve the match between consumers and products. However, the authenticity of online user reviews remains a concern; firms have an incentive to manufacture positive reviews for their own products and negative reviews for their rivals. In this paper,...

This note analyzes the existence of a possible media bias by determining the impact of automobile manufactures' advertisements on the probability that German car magazines review their products. By accounting for possible endogeneity, we find a positive impact of advertising volumes on test...

Online reviews could, in principle, greatly improve consumers' ability to evaluate products. However, the authenticity of online user reviews remains a concern; firms have an incentive to manufacture positive reviews for their own products and negative reviews for their rivals. In this paper, we...

The introduction of comparative product testing in Germany reflected the rise of a mass consumer society within a rapidly changing market economy. The first proposal to establish a federally supported institute for product testing was made in 1957. Proponents wished to reduce the asymmetries of...