Recent Working papers:

• Flagship Entry in Online Marketplaces, August 2021, with Zhentong Lu, Xiaolu Zhou and Lu Fang, SSRN working paper #3908123.

• Platform as a Rule Maker: Evidence from Airbnb's Cancellation Policies, May 2021, with Jian Jia and Liad Wagman, NBER working paper #28878.

• Top-up design and Health Care Expenditure: Evidence from Cardiac Stents, Nov. 2020, with Hsienming Lien and Xuezhen Tao, NBER working paper #28107.

• GDPR and the Localness of Venture Investment, January 2020, with Jian Jia and Liad Wagman, SSRN working paper #3436535.

• Medicare Payment to Skilled Nursing Facilities: The Consequences to the Three-Day Rule, June 2021, with Ajin Lee and Susan Lu, NBER working paper #25017, under review.

  • Skillednursingnews.com (9/17/2018)

Rested Working papers:

• The Alchemy of a Pyramid: Transmutating Business Opportunity Into a Negative Sum Wealth Transfer, Dec. 2019, with Andrew Stivers and Doug Smith, SSRN working paper #3497682.

• Protecting Consumers in Privacy and Data Security: A Perspective of Information Economics, May 2017, with Andrew Stivers, SSRN working paper #3006172.

• Learning by Doing with Asymmetric Information: Evidence from Prosper.com, Jul. 2018, with Seth Freedman, NBER working paper #16855.

• Peer Migration in China, Oct. 2018, with Yuyu Chen and Yang Yue, NBER working paper #15671, under review.

  • A brief summary in Vox

• More Trusting, Less Trust? An Investigation of Early E-commerce in China, Jul. 2014, with Hongbin Cai, Li-an Zhou and Chong Liu, NBER working paper #18961.

• Drug Advertising and Health Habit, Jan. 2007, with Toshiaki Iizuka, NBER working paper #11770.

All publications (descending in time):

2020 or forthcoming:

• Market Expanding or Market Stealing? Competition with Network Effects in Bike-Sharing, May 2021, with Guangyu Cao, Xi Weng and Li-an Zhou, NBER working paper #24938, accepted by the RAND Journal of Economics.

  • Summary on Vox (11/9/2018)

• Learning from Deregulation: The Asymmetric Impact of Lockdown and Reopening on Risky Behavior During COVID-19, Aug. 2020, with Edward L. Glaeser, Benjamin T. Leyden, Michael Luca, Journal of Regional Science, special issue on COVID-19 and regions, earlier draft available as NBER working paper #27650.

  • summary in Harvard Business School Working Knowledge (12/15/2020).

• The Effects of Government Licensing on E-commerce: Evidence from Alibaba, Oct. 2020, with Zhentong Lu, Xiaolu Zhou and Chunxiao Li, accepted by the Journal of Law & Economics, special issue in memory of Harold Demsetz, also available as NBER working paper #27884.

• Complex Disclosure, with Michael Luca and Daniel Martin, NBER working paper #24675, forthcoming Management Science.

• The Persistent Effects of the EU General Data Protection Regulation on Technology Venture Investment, with Jian Jia and Liad Wagman, Antitrust Source, June 2021. Volume 20, No. 6.

• Data Regulation and Technology Venture Investment: What Do We Learn From GDPR? with Jia Jian and Liad Wagman, Competition Policy International Antitrust Chronicle, Winter 2021, Vol. 1, No. 1.

• The Short-Run Effects of GDPR on Technology Venture Investment, Nov. 2019, with Jian Jia and Liad Wagman, NBER working paper #25248, Marketing Science, July-August 2021.

• Big Data at the Crossroads of Antitrust and Consumer Protection, Apr. 2020, with Liad Wagman, based on my keynote at the 16th ZEW Conference on the Economics of Information and Communication Technology in Mannheim, Germany (June 2018), Information Economics and Policy, Special Issue on Antitrust in the Digital Economy, March 2021.

• Learning by Suffering? Patterns in Flu Shot Take-up, Nov. 2018, with Thomas G. Koch, NBER working paper #25272, American Journal of Health Economics, Winter 2021, 7(1): 68-94.

• Is No News (Perceived as) Bad News? An Experimental Investigation of Information Disclosure, with Michael Luca and Daniel Martin, NBER working paper #21099, American Economic Journal: Microeconomics, May 2021, 13(2): 141-73.

  • summary on HBS Working Knowledge (6/1/2015); summary on Vox (7/22/2015)

2019:

• The Reverse Matthew Effect: Consequences of Retraction in Scientific Teams , with Susan Lu, Ben Jones and Brian Uzzi, Review of Economics and Statistics, July 2019, vol. 101(3), pages 492-506.

  • Online appendix. Comment from freakeconomics.com.

• Mobile Messaging for Offline Group Formation in Prosocial Activities: A Large Field Experiment, with Tianshu Sun and Guodong (Gordon) Gao, Management Science, June 2019, vol 65(6).

  • Best Paper (First Place), Conference on Information Systems and Economics (CIST) 2015.

• Direct-to-Consumer Advertising and Online Search (Nov. 2018), with Matthew Chesnes, Information Economics and Policy, 2019, vol. 46(C), pages 1-22.

• New Evidence on Information Disclosure through Restaurant Hygiene Grading: Reply, with Phillip Leslie, American Economic Journal: Economic Policy 2019, 11(4): 429–443.

2018:

• Price and Quality of Prescription Drugs, NBER Reporter 2018 number 4.

• Retraction and Reputation, in policy forum titled "Towards a more scientific science", with Susan Lu, Science, 21 Sep 2018, 361(6408) pp. 1194-1197.

• Aggregation of Consumer Ratings: An Application to Yelp.com, with Weijia (Daisy) Dai, Jungmin Lee, and Michael Luca, Quantitative Marketing and Economics, September 2018, vol. 16(3), pages 289-339.

• Artificial Intelligence and Consumer Privacy, chapter in Economics of Artificial Intelligence, edited by Ajay K. Agrawal, Joshua Gans and Avi Goldfarb, NBER 2018.

• A Tale of Repetition: Lessons from Florida Restaurant Inspections, with Jungmin Lee, Journal of Law & Economics, February 2018, 61(1): 159-188.

• Incomplete Disclosure: Evidence of Signaling and Countersignaling, with Ben Bederson, Phillip Leslie, Alex Quinn and Ben Zou, American Economic Journal: Microeconomics, February 2018, 10(1): 41-66.

  • Research Highlights by the American Economic Association

2017:

• Economics at the FTC: Deceptive Claims, Market Definition, and Patent Assertion Entities, with Julie Carlson, Matthew Jones, Jason O'Connor and Nathan Wilson, Review of Industrial Organization, December 2017, 51(4): 487–513.

• Banning Foreign Pharmacies from Sponsored Search: The Online Consumer Response, with Matthew Chesnes and Weijia (Daisy) Dai, Marketing Science, November-December 2017, 36(6): 879-907.

  • Highlights by INFORMS

• The Information Value of Online Social Networks: Lessons from Peer-to-Peer Lending , joint with Seth Freedman, International Journal of Industrial Organization, March 2017, 51: 185-222, previous versions available as NBER working paper #19820 and NET Institute Working Paper No. 08-43.

• Love, Money and Parental Goods: Does Parental Matchmaking Matter? , joint with Fali Huang and Lixin Xu , Journal of Comparative Economics May 2017, 45(2): 224-245, in Special section: Symposium on Gary Becker and Family Economics.

  • Wall Street Journal Blog (2015-02-11), World Bank Blog (2015-2-13) qq.com (2015-2-16) marginalrevolution.com (2016-9-8)

2016:

• Economics at the FTC: Horizontal Mergers and Data Security, with Dan Hanner, Marc Luppino and Ted Rosenbaum, Review of Industrial Organization, December 2016, 49(4): 613-631.

• Poor Drug Quality and Global Trade: A Pilot Study, with Roger Bate, Aparna Mathur and Amir Attaran, American Journal of Health Economics, Summer 2016, 2(3): 373-398.

  • Summary in Vox (10/9/2014), Opinion in Forbes (9/17/2014), mentioned in Economist (9/13/2014), Wall Street Journal Blog (9/18/2014), Bloomberg (9/17/2014).

  • Our response to comments from India (10/102014)

• Solving Shortage in a Priceless Market: Insights from Blood Donation, with Tianshu Sun and Susan Feng Lu. Journal of Health Economics, July 2016, 48: 149-165.

  • Coverage on Market Design Blog

2015:

• Falsified or Substandard? Assessing Price and Non-Price Signals of Drug Quality, with Roger Bate and Aparna Mathur, Journal of Economics & Management Strategy Winter 2015 (feature article).

  • Opinion piece on Forbes.com (6/3/2014); Q&A on JEMS (12/1/2015)

• Platform Pricing at Sportscard Conventions, with Marc Rysman, Journal of Industrial Economics, December 2015, 63(4): 704-735.

  • Press article in New York Times (4/21/2012)

• Employer Contribution and Premium Growth in Health Insurance, with Yiyan (Echo) Liu, Journal of Health Economics, January 2015, 228-247.

• Falsified or Substandard? Assessing Price and Non-Price Signals of Drug Quality, with Roger Bate and Aparna Mathur, Journal of Economics & Management Strategy Winter 2015 (feature article).

  • Opinion piece on Forbes.com (6/3/2014); Q&A on JEMS (12/1,/2015)

• Mandated Disclosure May Have Flaws, But It Still Has Value, June 22, 2015, comments on More Than You Wanted To Know: The Failure of Mandated Disclosure, by Omri Ben-Shahar and Carl E. Schneider, published on regblog.org.

2014:

• Seller Reputation: From Word-of-Mouth to Centralized Feedback, with Hongbin Cai, Li-an Zhou and Chong Liu, International Journal of Industrial Organization, May 2014, volume 34, page 51-65.

• Inspection Technology, Detection and Compliance: Evidence from Florida Restaurant Inspections, with Jungmin Lee, RAND Journal of Economics, Winter 2014, 45(4): 885-917.

2013:

• The Retraction Penalty: Evidence from the Web of Science, with Susan Lu, Ben Jones and Brian Uzzi, Scientific Reports , Volume 3, November 6, 2013.

• In Whom We Trust: The Role of Certification Agencies in Online Drug Markets, with Roger Bate and Aparna Mathur, forthcoming the B.E. Journal of Economic Analysis & Policy, Contribution tier , December 2013, Volume 14, Issue 1, Pages 111–150.

• The Promise of Beijing: Evaluating the Impact of the 2008 Olympic Games on Air Quality, with Yuyu Chen, Naresh Kumar , and Guang Shi, Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, 66 (2013): 424-443.

  • Comment from freakeconomics.com

2012:

• Does Health Insurance Coverage Lead to Better Health and Educational Outcomes? Evidence from Rural China , with Yuyu Chen, Journal of Health Economics, January 2012, 1-14.

• The Informative Role of Advertising and Experience in Dynamic Brand Choice: an Application to the Ready-to-Eat Cereal Market, with Yan Chen, Chapter 5 in Value of Information: Methodology Frontiers and New Applications in Environment and Health, edited by Ramanan Laxminarayan and Molly K. Macauley, Springer 2012.

• Gaming in Air Pollution Data? Lessons from China, with Yuyu Chen, Naresh Kumar, and Guang Shi, the B.E. Journal of Economic Analysis & Policy, Advances tier, Volume 13, Issue 3, 2012.

• Love and Money by Parental Matchmaking: Evidence from Urban Couples in China, with Fali Huang and Lixin Xu , American Economic Review Papers and Proceedings May 2012, 555-560.

2011:

• Does Price Reveal Poor-Quality Drugs? Evidence from 17 Countries, with Roger Bate and Aparna Mathur, Journal of Health Economics, December 2011, 1150-1163.

• The Potential Consequences of Public Release of Food Safety and Inspection Service Establishment-Specific Data (November 2011) with Lee-Ann Jaykus, Julie Caswell, James Dickson, John Dunn, Stephen Fienberg, William Hallman, Gale Prince, Donald Schaffner, Kathleen Segerson, Christopher Waldrop and David Weil as a committee appointed by the National Academies, Board on Agriculture and Natural Resources. Publisher: the National Academies Press, ISBN-10:0-309-22465-9 & ISBN-13: 978-0-309-22465-9.

2010:

• Quality Disclosure and Certification: Theory and Practice, with David Dranove, Journal of Economic Literature, December 2010, 48(4): 935-63.

• That's News to Me! Information Revelation in Professional Certification Markets , with John List and Andrew Kato, Economic Inquiry January 2010, 48(1): 104-122.

2009:

• Information, Learning, and Drug Diffusion: the Case of Cox-2 Inhibitors, with Pradeep Chintagunta and Renna Jiang, Quantitative Marketing and Economics, vol. 7(4), December 2009, 399-443.

• Reputation Incentives for Restaurant Hygiene with Phillip Leslie, American Economic Journal (Microeconomics) February 2009, 1(1): 237-67.

2008:

• Games Parents and Adolescents Play: Risky Behaviors, Parental Reputation and Strategic Transfers, with V. Joseph Hotz and Lingxin Hao, The Economic Journal. (April 2008 leading article): Vol 118 Issue 528: 515-555.

  • Press articles in Telegraph (4/16/08), The Daily Mail (4/16/08) , BBC (4/16/08), Wall Street Journal Blog (4/24/08), Newsweek (4/30/08), MSNBC (5/5/08).

2007:

• Direct to Consumer Advertising and Prescription Choice, with Toshiaki Iizuka, Journal of Industrial Economics , 2007, 55(4): 771-771.

• The Effects of Prescription Drug Advertising on Doctor Visits, with Toshiaki Iizuka, Journal of Economics & Management Strategy, Fall 2005, 14(3): 701-727.

• Dividing Online and Offline: A Case Study, with Andrew Kato, Review of Economic Studies (July 2007) Vol. 74(3), 981-1004.

  • Press articles in Toronto Star (June 8, 2013).

2003-2006:

• Information and Consumer Choice: The Value of Publicized Health Plan Ratings, with Alan Sorensen, Journal of Health Economics, March 2006, 25(2): 248-275.

• Price, Quality and Reputation: Evidence From An Online Field Experiment, with Andrew Kato, RAND Journal of Economics. Winter 2006, Vol. 37 No.4.

• The Effects of Prescription Drug Advertising on Doctor Visits, with Toshiaki Iizuka , Journal of Economics & Management Strategy, Fall 2005, 14(3): 701-727.

• Competition and Disclosure Incentives: An Empirical Study of HMOs, RAND Journal of Economics, Spring 2005, Vol. 26, 93-113.

• Impact of Restaurant Hygiene Grade Cards on Foodborne Disease Hospitalizations in Los Angeles County, (with Phillip Leslie, Paul Simon, Grace Run, Roshan Reporter, Arturo Aguirre and Jonathan E. Fielding) Journal of Environmental Health, March 2005, Vol. 67, 32-36.

• The Case in Support of Restaurant Hygiene Grade Cards, with Phillip Leslie, Choices, 2nd Quarter 2005, 20(2), 97-102.

  • This study has encouraged the public health authorities in the UK to adopt food hygiene grades both via restaurant window displays and on the internet. The internet publication of hygiene grades is available at www.scoresonthedoors.org.uk .

• The Effects of Information on Product Quality: Evidence from Restaurant Hygiene Grade Cards, with Phillip Leslie, Quarterly Journal of Economics, May 2003, 118(2), 409-51.

  • Press articles in the Wall Street Journal (5/29/2003), Sacramento Bee (6/21/2003 ), Los Angeles Times ( 7/28/2003).

  • Related opinions in Napa News (2/13/2005).

  • Book mentions: Secrets of the MoneyLab (by Kay-Yut Chen and Marina Krakovsky)