Trust is particularly important in online markets to facilitate the transfer of sensitive consumer information to online retailers. In electronic markets, various proposals have been made to facilitate these information transfers. We develop analytic models of hidden information to analyze the...

Peer-to-peer networks have emerged as a popular alternative to traditional client-server architectures for the distribution of information goods. Recent academic studies have observed high levels of free-riding in various peer-to-peer networks, leading some to predict the imminent collapse of...

The growth of Internet price search tools, notably shopbots, has reduced consumers’ search costs for price and some product characteristics. While a variety of analytic models predict that increased consumer search through shopbots will lower price levels among competing retailers, there is no...