Third-party product reviews (TPRs) have become ubiquitous in many industries. Aided by communication technologies, particularly on the Internet, TPRs are widely available to consumers, managers, and investors. The authors examine whether and how TPRs of new products influence the financial value...

Video games have become a major contributor to the US and global economy. This paper studies network externalities in the online video game industry. Even though network externalities are recognized as a major driver of new product diffusion, testing the existence and the impact of network...

This study examines how the structure of distribution channels may influence firms’ quality and price strategies and how they may in turn affect consumer welfare. It treats product quality as a decision variable so that the degree of product substitution becomes endogenous rather than...

Networks and the embedded relationships are critical determinants of how people communicate and form beliefs. The explosion of social media has significantly increased the scope and impact of social learning among consumers. This paper studies observational learning in networks of friends versus...

In this paper, we examine the persuasive influences of online user comments (or word-of-mouth) and of the reviews by movie critics on moviegoers’ evaluation of to-be-released movies. Two distinctive features of this study are: (1) moviegoers are considered to be heterogeneous in their movie...