The year 2019 witnessed two unicorn IPOs from ride-hailing platforms: Lyft at a $24.3 billion valuation and Uber at a $82.4 billion valuation. Did these platforms strategically adjust their marketing decisions before their IPOs to appease investors? To answer this question, we use a...

Online platforms often ask their users to refer friends in exchange for a reward. This paper addresses how referral decisions and referral quality evolve throughout the customer's life cycle as a function of service usage, experience level, and past referral behavior. Our analysis is based on a...

Two-sided platforms have become omnipresent (e.g., ride-sharing and on-demand delivery services). In this context, firms compete not only for customers but also for flexible self-scheduling workers who can work for multiple platforms. We consider a setting where two-sided platforms...

Peer-to-peer lending platforms have become commonplace for individuals and small firms interested in borrowing capital. Our analysis is based on two large peer-to-peer lending online platforms, which we refer to as P_1 and P_2. We are facing an interesting situation where P_1 went public by...