Consumers often have to evaluate products comprising a combination of attributes that is not expected by them, given their beliefs about how attributes normally co-vary in the product category. Such an attribute combination implies that the claimed level of a product attribute is then different...

In the early 21st century, firms are thinking seriously and practically about an interactive marketing paradigm—one that integrates mass scale with individual responsiveness. The focus of this paper is on how this interactive environment is changing the customer decision-making process. With...

Even though auctions are capturing an increasing share of commerce, they are typically treated in the theoretical economics literature as isolated. That is, an auction is typically treated as a single seller facing multiple buyers or as a single buyer facing multiple sellers. In this paper, we...

Many markets that have traditionally relied on collocation of buyers, sellers, and products have introduced electronic channels. Although these electronic channels may provide benefits to buyers and sellers by lowering the transaction costs of participating in the market, there are trade-offs...

A considerable body of research has extolled the virtues of establishing rapport in negotiations. Negotiators who are high in rapport tend to be more likely to reach an agreement and more satisfied with the outcome. Although rapport generally has been found to have positive effects in standard...

Due to complicated climatic and geographic conditions, China remains severely vulnerable to frequent, wide-scale natural disasters. We analyzed the impact of natural disasters on human security, agriculture safety and economic security over the past 30 years. The results reveal the high...

Unreliable inputs to production, particularly those that are difficult to store, can significantly limit firms' productivity, leading them to react in a number of ways. This paper uses a panel of 23,000 energy-intensive, Chinese firms from 1999 to 2004 to examine how firms responded to severe...