Two-sided platforms are typically plagued with asymmetric information, limiting market efficiency. Situated in the context of the increasingly popular online platforms for labor contracting (herein referred to as “online labor markets”), this paper investigates whether the implementation of...

We study the nature of home bias in online employment, wherein the employers prefer workers from their own home countries. Using a unique large-scale dataset from a major online labor platform, we identify employers' home bias in their online employment decisions. Moreover, we find that...

We explore whether there is a gender wage gap in the gig economy and examine to what degree gender differences in job application strategy could account for the gap. With a large-scale dataset from a leading online labor market, we show that females only earn around 81.4% of the hourly wage of...

Alibaba’s Taobao is China’s dominant C2C e-commerce platform. Relying on novel transaction level data from its electronics category, this paper examines the roles of distance as well as seller and buyer experience in Chinese e-commerce. Our estimate of a gravity model shows that the distance...

This study examines how changes in digital social visibility (or conversely, anonymity) can affect the characteristics of user-generated content (volume and linguistic features). We consider natural experiments at two leading online review websites (Yelp.com and TripAdvisor.com), wherein each...

A significant body of literature in information systems, marketing, and economics has shown the important implication of the distinction between experience products and search products ("product type") on consumer information search, marketplace design, and firm strategy. However, how to...

Online peer-to-peer communities and online social networks have become increasingly popular. In particular, the recent boost of online peer-to-peer communities leads to exponential growth in sharing of user-contributed content which have brought profound changes to business and economic...

It is well known that the Internet has significantly reduced consumers' search costs online. But relatively little is known about how search costs affect consumer demand structure in online markets. In this paper, we identify the impact of search costs on firm competition and market structure by...