Digital platforms sometimes offer incentives to a subset of sellers to nudge behavior, possibly affecting the behavior of all sellers in the equilibrium. In this paper, we study a policy change on a large e-commerce platform that offers financial incentives only to platform-certified sellers...

Early crowdfunding platforms were based on a premise of disintermediation from professional investors, and relied on the ‘wisdom of the crowd' to screen high quality projects. This becomes problematic when equity is involved, as the degree of asymmetric information between entrepreneurs...

Early crowdfunding platforms were based on a premise of complete disintermediation from traditional experts. This approach becomes problematic when equity is involved because of asymmetric information between entrepreneurs and investors. Moreover, it favors regions that already attract a...

Quality certification is a common tool to reduce asymmetric information and enhance trust in marketplaces. Should the certificate focus on seller inputs such as fast shipping, or include output measures such as consumer ratings? In theory, incorporating output measures makes the certificate more...

Online ratings play an important role in many markets. We study the often disputed information content of these ratings, by proposing a reduced-form Bayesian model of the typical buyer's rating decision. Our empirical evidence based on eBay raw data is in line with even intricate predictions...