We theorize peer awards’ effects on the volume and novelty of creative user-generated content (UGC) produced at online platform communities. We then test our hypotheses via a randomized field experiment on Reddit, wherein we randomly and anonymously assigned Reddit’s Gold Award to 905...

New empirical models of consumer demand that incorporate social preferences, observational learning, word-of-mouth or network effects have the feature that the adoption of others in the reference group – the “installed-base” – has a causal effect on current adoption behavior. Estimation...

New empirical models of consumer demand that incorporate social preferences, observational learning, word-of-mouth or network effects have the feature that the adoption of others in the reference group - the “installed-base” - has a causal effect on current adoption behavior. Estimation of...

We quantify the impact of social interactions and peer effects in the context of prescription choices by physicians. Using detailed individual-level prescription data, along with self-reported social network information, we document that physician prescription behavior is significantly...