Digitization and Pre-purchase Information: The Causal and Welfare Impacts of Reviews and Crowd Ratings
- (pp. 1944-71)
(Complimentary)
Abstract
Digitization has led to many new creative products, straining the capacity of professional critics and consumers. Yet, the digitization of retailing has also delivered new crowd-based sources of pre-purchase information. We compare the relative impacts of professional critics and crowd-based Amazon star ratings on consumer welfare in book publishing. Using various fixed effects and discontinuity-based empirical strategies, we estimate their causal impacts on sales. We use these causal estimates to calibrate a structural demand model. The aggregate effect of star ratings on consumer surplus is, in our baseline estimates, more than ten times the effect of traditional review outlets.Citation
Reimers, Imke, and Joel Waldfogel. 2021. "Digitization and Pre-purchase Information: The Causal and Welfare Impacts of Reviews and Crowd Ratings." American Economic Review, 111 (6): 1944-71. DOI: 10.1257/aer.20200153Additional Materials
JEL Classification
- D83 Search; Learning; Information and Knowledge; Communication; Belief; Unawareness
- L15 Information and Product Quality; Standardization and Compatibility
- L81 Retail and Wholesale Trade; e-Commerce
- L82 Entertainment; Media