In 1990, the U.S. News & World Report (USNWR) extended the coverage of its college rankings from only the top 25 to all national universities and colleges. This paper utilizes this exogenous information shock to identify the impact of college quality information on the financial resources of...

This study uses field experiments to investigate empirically the informational role of professional certifiers. We explore a certification market that has evolved in such a manner that provides a unique opportunity to measure the information provision of a monopolist certifier and that of...

Using sportscard grading as an example, we employ field experiments to investigate empirically the informational role of professional certifiers. In the past 20 years, professional grading of sportscards has evolved in a way that provides a unique opportunity to measure the information provision...

Because consumer reviews leverage the wisdom of the crowd, the way in which they are aggregated is a central decision faced by platforms. We explore this "rating aggregation problem" and offer a structural approach to solving it, allowing for (1) reviewers to vary in stringency and accuracy, (2)...