Online applications and services automate communications and transactions between firms and consumers, promising large efficiency gains. However, consumers have been slow to use these online technologies intensively, despite widespread adoption of the internet. Customers frequently undergo a...

This paper analyzes the role of heterogeneity and forward-looking expectations in the diffusion of network technologies. Using a detailed dataset on the adoption of a new videoconferencing technology within a firm, we estimate a structural model of technology adoption and communications choice....

There are many technology platforms that bring benefits only when users share data. In healthcare, this is a key policy issue, because of the potential cost savings and quality improvements from ‘big data’ in the form of sharing electronic patient data across medical providers. Indeed, one...

The accuracy of counts of U.S. racial/ethnic and immigrant groups depends on the coverage of the foreign-born in official data. Because Mexicans constitute by far the largest single national-origin group among the foreign-born in the United States, we compile new evidence about the coverage of...

Firms that sell via a direct channel <i>and</i> via indirect channels have to decide whether to allow third-party sellers to use trademarked brand names of products in their advertising. This question has been particularly controversial for advertising on search engines. In June 2009, Google started...

Given the preponderance of free content on the Internet, news media organizations face new challenges over how to manage access to and the pricing of their content. It is unclear whether content should be free or whether customers should pay via a “paywall.” We use experimental variation...

While climate change adaptation policy has tended to focus on planned adaptation interventions, in many vulnerable communities, adaptation will consist of autonomous, “unplanned” actions by individuals who are responding to multiple simultaneous sources of change. Their actions are likely...