关键词：
Economics
Economic theory
Information science
摘要：
This dissertation consists of two self-contained chapters, each of them containing an essay in microeconomics. It concerns the role that information plays in shaping the outcomes of economic interactions. The application of these ideas range from decentralized asset markets to traders in a market bazaar, but in particular to the economics of the Internet. The advent of online marketplaces has dramatically increased both the quantity and quality of information that market participants have available to them. These platforms have successfully mitigated classic market frictions such as search costs and adverse selection to allow consumers and producers to enjoy gains from trade. In what follows, I argue however that such an explosion of information might not always be beneficial. I identify novel and important settings in which withholding information from the market may be desirable. My dissertation comprises mainly theoretical analyses that highlight the key economic gains from suppressing information, but also extends to simple empirical exercises that provide guidance on the quantitative importance of these insights. In the first chapter, I study the impact of consumer reviews on the incentives for firms to participate in the market. Firms produce goods of heterogeneous, unknown quality that is gradually revealed via consumer reviews, and face both entry and exit decisions. A platform combines past reviews to construct firm-specific ratings that help guide consumer search. When the platform integrates all reviews into ratings - full transparency - consumers form queues at the highest-rated firms. This demand cliff induces an S-shaped continuation value for firms as a function of ratings, generating both low entry rates as well as unwanted selection effects - high-quality firms exit early. Whereas firms prefer more feedback when starting out and less feedback when established, equilibrium induces precisely the reverse profile. I then study the design of ratings syst
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