This paper uses a unique data set on screenplay sales to learn how the information content of a sales pitch affects sale prices. This is one of the few studies that analyze “soft information” outside the banking industry. We find that “soft information” proxies, such as the descriptive...

Previous literature has documented the impact of critics on audience choices of movies. We investigate three issues regarding professional critics in the motion picture industry. First we document whether and to what extent critics and their recommendations exhibit a statistical bias toward...