000			01205nam a22001457a 4500
999			_c518337 _d518337
008			210917b ||||| |||| 00| 0 eng d
100			_aReimers, Imke and Waldfogel, Joel _929118
245			_aDigitization and pre-purchase information: The causal and welfare impacts of reviews and crowd ratings
260			_aThe American Economic Review
300			_a111(6), Jun, 2021: p.1944-1971
520			_aDigitization 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. – Reproduced
773			_aThe American Economic Review
906			_aINFORMATION TECHNOLOGY
942			_cAR