The internet contains billions of documents, is there useful information in the number of websites about different topics? We propose, based on the premise that the occurrence of a phenomenon increases the likelihood that people write about it, that the relative frequency of documents discussing...

The internet and other large textual databases contain billions of documents: is there useful information in the number of documents written about different topics? We propose, based on the premise that the occurrence of a phenomenon increases the likelihood that people write about it, that the...

We document that eBay bidders exhibit a biased preference for auctions with more bids, even if these are non-diagnostic of quality, creating an incentive for sellers to lower starting prices to attract early bids. We find that lowering starting prices succeeds in increasing the likelihood that...