Digital platforms increasingly engage in quality controls by regulating product listings and transactions. Although their immediate effect on the involved sellers is evident, their carryover effect on adopters and their spillover effect on nonadopters remain unclear. We address this gap using a natural experiment on a secondhand platform. The platform introduced a submarket with quality controls in the mobile phone category. The submarket offers quality checks, detailed quality reports, standardized listing information, recommended prices, post-purchase guarantees, and free delivery. We find that the qualitycontrolled submarket not only immediately increases adopters' sales but also has a positive carryover effect. After adopting, sellers learn from the platform's quality standards and improve their subsequent listing behaviors and sales performance, even outside the qualitycontrolled submarket. Moreover, we uncover a U-shaped effect for nonadopters; when the adoption rate is low, nonadopters are disadvantaged because of intensified competition from adopters; however, as adoption increases, they benefit from enhanced buyer perception of platform quality. The competition effect and the perception improvement effect dominate at different stages of adoption. These findings have important implications for platform strategies and policies concerning anticompetitive effects of platform quality controls.

绿色发展给传统行业的可持续演化带来了挑战,从需求端进行市场教育、促进消费者使用绿色产品变成行业可持续演化过程中一个日益重要的研究问题.在这个过程中,新产品上市是最鲜明、对产品社会认知影响最为明显的教育活动,其对市场上的已有产品可能具有两种作用.一方面,新产品可能与老产品产生竞争,分走蛋糕;另一方面,新的绿色产品可能通过广告、促销或渠道等市场教育方式促进消费者意识,了解和学习新的绿色产品,对已有的绿色产品产生需求外溢,做大饼干.重点关注可持续演化过程中新产品的市场教育作用,基于中国汽车市场6年来近千款汽车近3万条月销量数据建立面板模型,从实证角度分析新上市的新能源汽车对在市不同类型汽车的影响,并探究品牌强度和品牌关系在其中扮演的角色.研究结果表明,新上市的新能源汽车对在市的老产品同时具有"分糕"和"做饼"作用.对在市的传统产品是竞争作用,降低燃油汽车的销量,即"分糕"效果;而对在市的新能源汽车是积极的需求外溢作用,增加其销量,即"做饼"效果.进一步的分析支持品牌的市场教育作用机制,即"分糕"和"做饼"效果受到品牌强度和品牌关系的影响,具有非对称性和近亲性,强品牌"分糕"和"做饼"的市场教育效果大于弱品牌,"做饼"的受益方更多的是品牌自身的其他新能源产品,"分糕"则主要分走其他品牌的燃油汽车份额.研究结果揭示了新的绿色产品通过市场教育与传统产品"分糕"、对绿色产品"做饼"进而加速行业可持续演化进程的现象,帮助研究人员更好地理解这一过程中企业扮演的角色.对于处于可持续演化中的企业,绿色产品的上市管理决策需要全盘考虑市场其他竞争者的决策,利用好"分糕"和"做饼"的效果,进而提升销量.

In this paper, we investigate the impact of ownership structure on corporate advertising expenditures. Using mutual fund mergers as an exogenous shock to ownership structure, we find that competing firms owned by the same institutional blockholders experience a significant reduction in advertising expenditure. The reduction in advertising expenditure is more likely to occur in the presence of higher coordination benefits or lower coordination costs. Specifically, this effect is more pronounced for firms in more competitive industries, in higher advertising-intensity industries, with greater common ownership, with more concentrated institutional ownership, and with headquarters located in the same state. Overall, our empirical evidence indicates that ownership by common institutional investors significantly affects corporate advertising strategy. This paper was accepted by Matthew Shum, marketing.

To reduce the gender gap in academia, National Science Foundation in China raised the age limit for female applicants in Young Scientists Fund from 35 to 40 years old in 2011 while keeping that for males unchanged. Although it encourages applications from newly-eligible scientists, female applicants become more difficult to be granted compared to males unintendedly, reflected by a lower award rate. We propose our explanations based on two premises, i.e., the gender difference in research topics and the reviewers' favoritism. The former translates to within-gender cannibalism. The latter leads to within-topic cannibalism that the award status for one application is more affected by applications in the same topics than those in different ones. Our study calls for more prudence in female-supporting policies.

Using iterative experiments to uncover causal links between critical policy details and outcomes helps to optimize policy design. This paper studies a large-scale staged fiscal stimulus program conducted during the COVID-19 pandemic, in which a provincial government in China disbursed digital coupons to 8.4 million individual accounts in consecutive waves and updated the program design in each wave. We find that ruling out unproductive program features leads to a pattern of increasing treatment effects over the waves and that program design matters more than the size of the fiscal stimulus in boosting spending. Our results show that (i) general coupons with no constraints on where the vouchers can be redeemed are more effective than specialized coupons in stimulating consumption in the targeted sectors; (ii) coupon packets with fewer denominations and shorter redemption windows tend to be more effective; and (iii) low-income residents and non-local residents are equally or even more responsive to the coupon program than other groups. Our results illustrate that generating variations in iterative policy experiments, combined with a timely assessment of individuals’ responses to marginal incentives, optimizes program design.

As a novel and booming medium, the livestreaming industry has attracted millions of broadcasters and viewers worldwide. Gifts from viewers have become the main revenue source for most broadcasters and livestreaming platforms. This study employs data from a major showroom livestreaming platform in China to examine this practice of “gifting” during a livestreaming event. The authors first explore the antecedents of gift-receiving, which mainly focus on the effect of social interaction. The results show that the more social interactions in a live session, the more likely the broadcaster receives more gifts, and the effect is enhanced when a more experienced broadcaster is participating. Furthermore, the authors examine the consequences of gift-receiving and social interaction on broadcasters’ short-term activation and long-term retention. They find that both gift-receiving and social interaction can positively affect broadcasters’ live content provision in the short and long run, and the effects change with the increase of broadcasters’ experiences. This study offers insight into gifting in livestreaming, which gives scope for relevant future explorations.

当前,大数据方法被广泛应用在各种营销问题上,如实时洞察和响应客户需求、精准广告投放、预测产品和服务的需求量、明确品牌定位、优化广告投放策略等.万物互联时代的营销创新被赋予了新的内涵.大数据营销学术研究主要集中在如何利用大数据技术和方法改进传统营销决策方面,较少涉及大数据营销理论的创新,尚未深入探...>>详细当前,大数据方法被广泛应用在各种营销问题上,如实时洞察和响应客户需求、精准广告投放、预测产品和服务的需求量、明确品牌定位、优化广告投放策略等.万物互联时代的营销创新被赋予了新的内涵.大数据营销学术研究主要集中在如何利用大数据技术和方法改进传统营销决策方面,较少涉及大数据营销理论的创新,尚未深入探讨传统营销理论在万物互联时代的适用性.因此,大数据营销的相关研究还需要进一步聚焦理论创新,深入研究万物互联背景下由数据驱动的企业竞争战略、品牌管理、客户管理和消费者对数据驱动的营销活动的反应等理论问题,要结合万物互联时代的新变化,深度挖掘数据价值,为学术领域和实践领域提供与时俱进的指导.

Online question-and-answer platforms allow consumers to learn different perspectives of information and knowledge from content producers. Such platforms’ performance critically depends on both quantity and variety of knowledge contents generated by the crowd. This paper studies how early-stage knowledge productions influence the future crowd’s knowledge production behavior. Using a novel data set from one of the largest question-and-answer platforms, we construct measure of knowledge variety using an unsupervised learning method. Our empirical analysis suggests that early-stage knowledge contents have substantial influences on the quantity and variety of the future knowledge contents. Specifically, we document that (1) lengthier early-stage knowledge contents decrease the quantity of future knowledge contents but increase the variety; (2) higher numbers of upvotes of early-stage knowledge contents lead to more future knowledge contents and do not affect the variety. Moreover, we find that the identity of the early knowledge producer (e.g., expert vs. non-expert) moderates the interrelationship between earlystage knowledge contents and future knowledge contents under the same question on a Q&A platform. Our results shed important managerial insights on how platforms can utilize the early-stage knowledge contents’ influences on the direction of future knowledge content growth and further optimize platform strategies.

We use a novel panel with detailed transaction records of more than one million de-identified individuals to study the effect of a large-scale Chinese government-issued digital coupon program on consumer spending. Exploiting a difference-in-differences approach, we find that the digital coupon is highly effective in stimulating consumption. An effective government subsidy of RMB 1 can drive excess spending of RMB 3.4 to RMB 5.8, and the effect persists across multiple coupon issuance waves. In explaining the results, we find that a behavioral model with mental accounting and loss aversion can match the empirical evidence from the field. Our analysis, by illustrating the importance of embedding behavioral factors into the design and implementation of public policy, informs the current debate about cost-effective policy tools to recover the economy. This paper was accepted by Matthew Shum, marketing.

Platform businesses are typically resource-intensive and must scale up their business quickly in the early stage to compete successfully against fast-emerging rivals. We study a critical question faced by such firms in the novel context of multicategory two-sided platforms: how to optimally make investment decisions across two sides, multiple categories, and different time periods to achieve fast and sustainable growth. We first develop a two-category two-period theoretical model and propose optimal resource allocation strategies that account for heterogeneous within-category direct and indirect network effects and cross-category interdependence. We find that the proposed strategy shares the spirit of the allocation rules for multiproduct nonplatform firms and single-product platform firms, yet it does not amount to a simple combination of the existing rules. Interestingly, the business model that platforms adopt crucially determines the optimal strategy. Platforms that charge by user should adopt a “reinforcing” rule for both within- and cross-category allocations by allocating more resources toward the stronger growth driver. Platforms that charge by transaction should also adopt the reinforcing rule for within-category allocation, but follow a “compensatory” rule for cross-category and intertemporal allocations by allocating more resources toward the weaker growth driver. We use data from the daily deals industry to empirically identify the network effects, propose alternative allocation strategies stemming from our theoretical findings, and use simulations to show the benefits of these strategies. For instance, we show that reallocating 10% of the average observed investment from Fitness to Beauty can increase profits by up to 15.5% for some cities. This paper was accepted by Matthew Shum, marketing.

This paper seeks to understand the function of online showrooms for multicategory online retailing platforms. The authors conceptualize two showroom capabilities in this context: the exploration function that expands consumers awareness set of product categories and induces purchases of new categories not previously purchased; and the experience function that facilitates test and trial and is essential to the sales of experience products. Using detailed transaction-level data along with in-store product scanning records from a large online retailing platform with an online showroom, this research finds supporting evidence for both capabilities, especially the understudied exploration capability. The paper finds that online showroom visits have a positive impact on customers overall purchase behavior in the short term. In particular, show- room visitors expand the purchase categories for both experience and search products, compared to their similar non-visiting counterparts. Such an expansion in search categories is attributable to the exploration function. Empirical analysis further shows the information provision by on-site salespeople can enhance the category expansion effect. Finally, simulation analysis quantifies both the short-run and long-run effects of the online showroom on total and category specific sales.

用户在线分享成为人们进行线上交流的主要方式之一,在社交平台上,人们可以选择关注自己感兴趣的用户,这些用户可以是明星,也可以是普通人群.人们在社交平台的发帖行为可以分为发原创帖和转发别人的帖子两种,发帖的数量和质量直接与平台的收入挂钩,因此如何鼓励人们在社交平台上发帖成为研究人员关心的问题.着眼于用户关注类型(意见领袖和非意见领袖)和发帖类型(原创帖和转发帖)对自身发帖行为的影响,采用从新浪微博获取的相关数据,从实证角度分析用户关注类型和发帖类型对自身发帖行为的影响,并运用工具变量的方法解决相关内生性问题.研究结果表明,意见领袖的发帖数(无论是转发帖还是原创帖)对自身发帖行为具有正向影响,非意见领袖的原创帖数对用户的发帖行为有正向影响,转发帖数对用户的发帖行为有负向影响.这是因为意见领袖很少与用户进行互动,做为信息的传递和扩散者,意见领袖的存在为用户提供了良好的发帖素材和来源,对用户的发帖行为产生纯粹的外生影响.然而非意见领袖的转发帖很大程度上会挤压粉丝用于发帖的时间,从而抑制粉丝的发帖行为.研究结果可以帮助研究人员更好地理解意见领袖和非意见领袖在社交平台的作用,洞悉用户发帖背后的动机.对于平台企业来说,营销人员可以根据用户关注的类型进行差异化的营销策略,从而提升平台的活跃度.建议平台企业的营销方案要因人而异,多采取个性化营销.

在线用户创造内容(User Generated Content,UGC)已经成为人们在社交平台上进行交流与信息分享的主要方式.高质量的UGC能够吸引更多的广告主,为平台带来可观的收入.因此,如何鼓励人们在社交平台上贡献优质的内容已成为研究人员关心的重要问题之一.用户为何发帖？产生UGC的动机是什么？这类问题已经受到越来越多学者的关注.本文提出了一个全面的效用理论模型,用于研究用户的发帖动机.在已有的内在效用和形象效用的基础上,本文提出了交互效用的概念.具体地,交互效用是指用户通过与社交平台上的好友进行互动而获得的效用.其次,本文在效用最优化的方程中加入了时间约束这一条件,通过该约束条件,我们可以进一步分析用户是如何分配发帖与阅读他人帖子的时间的.最后,本文用新浪微博的数据对理论模型进行了实证检验.

We investigate the factors that affect the growth of Groupon, the leading online daily deals platform. We concentrate on the online-to-offline O2O aspect of the business that differentiates it from other e-commerce platforms-its strong connection to local markets. We focus on travel cost and store density, the key local characteristics that affect consumer deal demand and merchant deal offering. Using a comprehensive longitudinal data set on deal offerings and sales across local markets, and combining it with local market characteristics, we estimate a simultaneous equation model of the weekly number of deal offerings and deal sales characterizing the two-sided nature of the platform. We find that the word-of-mouth effect on the consumer side and the observational learning effect on the merchant side contribute to and reinforce the expansion of a two-sided platform. However, a larger number of deals intensifies the competition, which then lowers per deal sales and limits the number of deal offerings. We find that local characteristics have significant impact on both the deal demand and the supply side. We further use model simulation to show how differences in growth patterns across markets may be driven by local characteristics, and we decompose their relative impact on the demand and supply sides. The paper provides managerial implications for firms specializing in O2O commerce. This paper was accepted by Matthew Shum, marketing.

This paper considers the effect of firms sending advertising messages to consumers based on their past purchase behavior. If past purchase behavior on a product category is positively correlated with a consumer having high preferences in another category, a firm may want to advertise more intensively to those consumers that purchased the former category, if possible. This paper finds that this can lead to lower prices in the initial category if the annoyance of receiving advertising is large, and to higher prices if the annoyance of receiving advertising is not too large, as consumers expect a possible additional surplus from the category affected by behavior-based advertising. If receiving advertising does not yield too much annoyance to consumers, firms end up better off due to both higher prices and the increased demand of better matching of advertising. Behavior-based advertising may also lead firms to sell less in the initial category than without behavior-based advertising, as a way to be able to better target the most valuable consumers. If the consumer annoyance of receiving advertising is large, firms may end up serving only a few consumers initially, as attracting more consumers requires prices that are too low, and the initial consumers are attracted because of the possibility of lower prices in the following period. The paper also investigates the effects of joint behavior-based pricing and advertising, and of different firms benefiting from the purchase information. This paper was accepted by Matthew Shum, marketing.