This paper studies probabilistic selling with vertically differentiated products when firms compete and consumers anticipate the potential post-purchase regret raised by possibly obtaining the inferior products. Intuitively, anticipated regret hurts the attractiveness of probabilistic selling....

We study whether complementarities can help a firm enter a market with strong network effects and incumbency advantages. We find that bundling the network good with a complementary good, or using the network good as a loss leader (i.e., pricing below marginal cost) can facilitate entry, but that...

Much of the new “gig economy” relies on reputation systems to reduce problems of asymmetric information. In most cases, these reputation systems function well by soliciting unbiased feedback from buyers and sellers. However, certain features of online labor markets create incentives for...

Major online platforms such as Amazon and eBay have invested significantly in search technologies to direct consumer searches to relevant products. These technologies lead to targeted search, implying consumers are visiting more relevant sellers first. For example, consumers may directly enter...

In October 2014, all 4,494 undergraduates at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology were given access to Bitcoin, a decentralized digital currency. As a unique feature of the experiment, students who would generally adopt first were placed in a situation where many of their peers received...

We study a two-sided market in which a platform connects consumers and sellers, and signs private contracts with sellers. We compare this situation with a two-sided market with public contracts. We find that the platform provider sets positive (negative) royalties to sellers and earns a negative...

Universal service is a policy objective that all individuals or households have access to some service. Subsidy policies to accomplish universal service may arise when private provision is non-universal. In the context of rural high speed wired broadband subsidies, this paper examines novel...

Access to the internet is critical for participating in modern society, yet, 17% of Americans lack access to broadband internet, according to the Federal Communications Commission (FCC). A key objective of the FCC is to promote policies that advance the availability of quality telecommunications...

To understand how consolidation impacts quality provision, I estimate demand and supply of the signal quality of wireless telephony using a proprietary survey and a unique database of antenna facilities, or base stations. Using local land use regulation as an instrument, I find a 1% increase in...