We present a framework for measuring software quality using pricing anddemand data, and empirical estimates that quantify the extent of qualitydegradation associated with software ver- sioning. Using a 7-month,108-product panel of software sales from Amazon.com, we document theextent to which...

A series of recent papers have investigated the nature of trading andsorting induced by the dynamic price mechanism in a competitive durablegood market with adverse selection and exogenous entry of traders overtime. These models are dynamic versions of Akerlof's (1970) seminalwork. The general...

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

The phenomenon of sponsored search advertising – where advertiserspay a fee to Internet search engines to be displayed alongside organic(non-sponsored) web search results – is gaining ground as thelargest source of revenues for search engines. Using a unique paneldataset of several hundred...

Information systems and the Internet have facilitated the creation of used product markets that feature a dramatically wider selection, lower search costs, and lower prices than their brick-andmortar counterparts do. The increased viability of these used product markets has caused concern among...

Internet referral services, hosted either by independent third-party infomediaries or by manufacturers serve as ``lead-generators'' in electronic marketplaces, directing consumer traffic to particular retailers. The conventional wisdom on Internet referral services is that they are valuable to...

The Internet has had profound effects on society, both positive and negative. In this paper we examine the effect of the Internet on a negative spillover: hate crime. In order to better understand the link, we study the extent to which broadband availability affects racial hatecrimes in the US...

We review research on revenue models used by online firms who offer digital goods. Such goods are non-rival, have near zero marginal cost of production and distribution, low marginal cost of consumer search, and low transaction costs. Additionally, firms can easily observe and measure consumer...

We investigate how the expansion of Craigslist into different states over a 11 year period in the United States affected the incidence of HIV. Using a natural experiment setup, we identify the effects of Craigslist's entry on HIV trends by exploiting the variations across states and time. After...