IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/regeco/v75y2019icp22-34.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Reviews and price on online platforms: Evidence from sentiment analysis of Airbnb reviews in Boston

Author

Listed:
  • Lawani, Abdelaziz
  • Reed, Michael R.
  • Mark, Tyler
  • Zheng, Yuqing

Abstract

There is a growing interest in deriving value from user-generated comments and reviews online. For businesses and consumers using online platforms, the reviews serve as quality metrics and influence consumers purchasing decision. This study examines the relationship between guests' reviews, used as a proxy for quality, and the price set by hosts on the Airbnb platform in Boston. Using sentiment analysis to derive the quality from the reviews and a hedonic spatial autoregressive model applied to rental room prices on Airbnb, we find that prices are strategic complements and are influenced by the review score, the characteristics of the room, and the features of the neighborhood. The marketing implication is that consumers respond to the contents of online reviews, in addition to customer ratings. Policies that improve the quality of the room for one host will have a spillover effect on the price of rooms offered by other hosts.

Suggested Citation

  • Lawani, Abdelaziz & Reed, Michael R. & Mark, Tyler & Zheng, Yuqing, 2019. "Reviews and price on online platforms: Evidence from sentiment analysis of Airbnb reviews in Boston," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 75(C), pages 22-34.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:regeco:v:75:y:2019:i:c:p:22-34
    DOI: 10.1016/j.regsciurbeco.2018.11.003
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S016604621730340X
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.regsciurbeco.2018.11.003?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Motta, Massimo, 1993. "Endogenous Quality Choice: Price vs. Quantity Competition," Journal of Industrial Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 41(2), pages 113-131, June.
    2. Gravelle, Hugh & Santos, Rita & Siciliani, Luigi, 2014. "Does a hospital's quality depend on the quality of other hospitals? A spatial econometrics approach," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 49(C), pages 203-216.
    3. Stephanie Riegg Cellini & Fernando Ferreira & Jesse Rothstein, 2010. "The Value of School Facility Investments: Evidence from a Dynamic Regression Discontinuity Design," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 125(1), pages 215-261.
    4. Hagiu, Andrei & Wright, Julian, 2015. "Multi-sided platforms," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 43(C), pages 162-174.
    5. Green, Richard & Hendershott, Patric H., 1996. "Age, housing demand, and real house prices," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 26(5), pages 465-480, August.
    6. Nikolay Archak & Anindya Ghose & Panagiotis G. Ipeirotis, 2011. "Deriving the Pricing Power of Product Features by Mining Consumer Reviews," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 57(8), pages 1485-1509, August.
    7. Mussa, Michael & Rosen, Sherwin, 1978. "Monopoly and product quality," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 18(2), pages 301-317, August.
    8. Floyd, Kristopher & Freling, Ryan & Alhoqail, Saad & Cho, Hyun Young & Freling, Traci, 2014. "How Online Product Reviews Affect Retail Sales: A Meta-analysis," Journal of Retailing, Elsevier, vol. 90(2), pages 217-232.
    9. James P. Lesage, 2008. "An Introduction to Spatial Econometrics," Revue d'économie industrielle, De Boeck Université, vol. 0(3), pages 19-44.
    10. Kristine de Valck & Roberts V. Kozinets & Andrea C. Wojnicki & Sarah J.S. Wilner, 2010. "Networked Narratives: Understanding Word-of-Mouth Marketing in Online Communities," Post-Print hal-00458424, HAL.
    11. Klein, Lisa R., 1998. "Evaluating the Potential of Interactive Media through a New Lens: Search versus Experience Goods," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 41(3), pages 195-203, March.
    12. Nicolau, Juan Luis & Sellers, Ricardo, 2010. "The quality of quality awards: Diminishing information asymmetries in a hotel chain," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 63(8), pages 832-839, August.
    13. Hornik, Kurt & Mair, Patrick & Rauch, Johannes & Geiger, Wilhelm & Buchta, Christian & Feinerer, Ingo, 2013. "The textcat Package for n-Gram Based Text Categorization in R," Journal of Statistical Software, Foundation for Open Access Statistics, vol. 52(i06).
    14. Lee Mobley & H. E. Frech & Luc Anselin, 2009. "Spatial Interaction, Spatial Multipliers and Hospital Competition," International Journal of the Economics of Business, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 16(1), pages 1-17.
    15. Neilson, Christopher A. & Zimmerman, Seth D., 2014. "The effect of school construction on test scores, school enrollment, and home prices," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 120(C), pages 18-31.
    16. Horn, Keren & Merante, Mark, 2017. "Is home sharing driving up rents? Evidence from Airbnb in Boston," Journal of Housing Economics, Elsevier, vol. 38(C), pages 14-24.
    17. Adam Nowak & Patrick Smith, 2017. "Textual Analysis in Real Estate," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 32(4), pages 896-918, June.
    18. de Oliveira Santos, Glauber Eduardo, 2016. "Worldwide hedonic prices of subjective characteristics of hostels," Tourism Management, Elsevier, vol. 52(C), pages 451-454.
    19. Jaskold Gabszewicz, J. & Thisse, J. -F., 1979. "Price competition, quality and income disparities," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 20(3), pages 340-359, June.
    20. Mobley, Lee R., 2003. "Estimating hospital market pricing: an equilibrium approach using spatial econometrics," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 33(4), pages 489-516, July.
    21. Wauthy, Xavier, 1996. "Quality Choice in Models of Vertical Differentiation," Journal of Industrial Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 44(3), pages 345-353, September.
    22. Shaked, Avner & Sutton, John, 1983. "Natural Oligopolies," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 51(5), pages 1469-1483, September.
    23. Ert, Eyal & Fleischer, Aliza & Magen, Nathan, 2016. "Trust and reputation in the sharing economy: The role of personal photos in Airbnb," Tourism Management, Elsevier, vol. 55(C), pages 62-73.
    24. Yang, Yang & Mueller, Noah J. & Croes, Robertico R., 2016. "Market accessibility and hotel prices in the Caribbean: The moderating effect of quality-signaling factors," Tourism Management, Elsevier, vol. 56(C), pages 40-51.
    25. Bivand, Roger & Piras, Gianfranco, 2015. "Comparing Implementations of Estimation Methods for Spatial Econometrics," Journal of Statistical Software, Foundation for Open Access Statistics, vol. 63(i18).
    26. Bates, Douglas & Mächler, Martin & Bolker, Ben & Walker, Steve, 2015. "Fitting Linear Mixed-Effects Models Using lme4," Journal of Statistical Software, Foundation for Open Access Statistics, vol. 67(i01).
    27. Michael Luca, 2011. "Reviews, Reputation, and Revenue: The Case of Yelp.com," Harvard Business School Working Papers 12-016, Harvard Business School, revised Mar 2016.
    28. Çağlayan Ebru & Arikan Eban, 2011. "Determinants of house prices in Istanbul: a quantile regression approach," Quality & Quantity: International Journal of Methodology, Springer, vol. 45(2), pages 305-317, February.
    29. Abrate, Graziano & Capriello, Antonella & Fraquelli, Giovanni, 2011. "When quality signals talk: Evidence from the Turin hotel industry," Tourism Management, Elsevier, vol. 32(4), pages 912-921.
    30. Ihlanfeldt, Keith & Mayock, Tom, 2010. "Panel data estimates of the effects of different types of crime on housing prices," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 40(2-3), pages 161-172, May.
    31. Benjamin Edelman & Michael Luca & Dan Svirsky, 2017. "Racial Discrimination in the Sharing Economy: Evidence from a Field Experiment," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 9(2), pages 1-22, April.
    32. Fang, Bin & Ye, Qiang & Law, Rob, 2016. "Effect of sharing economy on tourism industry employment," Annals of Tourism Research, Elsevier, vol. 57(C), pages 264-267.
    33. Paul A. Pavlou & Angelika Dimoka, 2006. "The Nature and Role of Feedback Text Comments in Online Marketplaces: Implications for Trust Building, Price Premiums, and Seller Differentiation," Information Systems Research, INFORMS, vol. 17(4), pages 392-414, December.
    34. Claudio Frischtak & Benjamin R. Mandel, 2012. "Crime, house prices, and inequality: the effect of UPPs in Rio," Staff Reports 542, Federal Reserve Bank of New York.
    35. Sunding, David L. & Swoboda, Aaron M., 2010. "Hedonic analysis with locally weighted regression: An application to the shadow cost of housing regulation in Southern California," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 40(6), pages 550-573, November.
    36. Arthur De Vany & W. Walls, 1999. "Uncertainty in the Movie Industry: Does Star Power Reduce the Terror of the Box Office?," Journal of Cultural Economics, Springer;The Association for Cultural Economics International, vol. 23(4), pages 285-318, November.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Feifei Tian & Fengzhi Sun & Beibei Hu & Zhitao Dong, 2022. "The Impact on Bed and Breakfast Prices: Evidence from Airbnb in China," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(21), pages 1-15, October.
    2. Cigdem Gedikli & Robert Hill & Oleksandr Talavera & Okan Yilmaz, 2025. "Online Real Estate Agencies and their Impact on the Housing Market," Discussion Papers 25-01, Department of Economics, University of Birmingham.
    3. Yifei Jiang & Honglei Zhang & Xianting Cao & Ge Wei & Yang Yang, 2023. "How to better incorporate geographic variation in Airbnb price modeling?," Tourism Economics, , vol. 29(5), pages 1181-1203, August.
    4. Jiawei Chen & Yinghui (Catherine) Yang & Hongyan Liu, 2021. "Mining Bilateral Reviews for Online Transaction Prediction: A Relational Topic Modeling Approach," Information Systems Research, INFORMS, vol. 32(2), pages 541-560, June.
    5. Almorox, Eduardo Gonzalo & Stokes, Jonathan & Morciano, Marcello, 2022. "Has COVID-19 changed carer's views of health and care integration in care homes? A sentiment difference-in-difference analysis of on-line service reviews," Health Policy, Elsevier, vol. 126(11), pages 1117-1123.
    6. Gyódi, Kristóf, 2021. "Airbnb and hotels during COVID-19: different strategies to survive," MPRA Paper 109333, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    7. Chunfang Zhao & Yingliang Wu & Yunfeng Chen & Guohua Chen, 2023. "Multiscale Effects of Hedonic Attributes on Airbnb Listing Prices Based on MGWR: A Case Study of Beijing, China," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(2), pages 1-21, January.
    8. Patrick Gauß & Sonja Gensler & Michael Kortenhaus & Nadine Riedel & Andrea Schneider, 2024. "Regulating the sharing economy: The effects of day caps on short- and long-term rental markets and stakeholder outcomes," Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, Springer, vol. 52(6), pages 1627-1650, November.
    9. Robert J. Hill & Norbert Pfeifer & Miriam Steurer, 2020. "The Airbnb Rent-Premium and the Crowding-Out of Long-Term Rentals," Graz Economics Papers 2020-06, University of Graz, Department of Economics.
    10. Fan, Huirong & Khouja, Moutaz & Gao, Jie & Zhou, Jing, 2023. "Incorporating social learning into the optimal return and pricing decisions of online retailers," Omega, Elsevier, vol. 118(C).
    11. José António C. Santos & Manuel Á. Fernández-Gámez & Miguel Ángel Solano-Sánchez & Francisco José Rey-Carmona & Lorena Caridad y López del Rio, 2020. "Valuation Models for Holiday Rentals’ Daily Rates: Price Composition Based on Booking.com," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(1), pages 1-15, December.
    12. Lin, Wenzhen & Yang, Fan, 2024. "The price of short-term housing: A study of Airbnb on 26 regions in the United States," Journal of Housing Economics, Elsevier, vol. 65(C).
    13. Ma, Guanhua & Ma, Junhua & Li, Hao & Wang, Yiming & Wang, Zhaohua & Zhang, Bin, 2022. "Customer behavior in purchasing energy-saving products: Big data analytics from online reviews of e-commerce," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 165(C).
    14. Giulia Contu & Luca Frigau & Claudio Conversano, 2023. "Price indicators for Airbnb accommodations," Quality & Quantity: International Journal of Methodology, Springer, vol. 57(5), pages 4779-4802, October.
    15. Christopher Gerling & Stefan Lessmann, 2024. "Leveraging AI and NLP for Bank Marketing: A Systematic Review and Gap Analysis," Papers 2411.14463, arXiv.org.
    16. En-Gir Kim & Se-Hak Chun, 2019. "Analyzing Online Car Reviews Using Text Mining," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(6), pages 1-22, March.
    17. Dong Zhang & Chong Wu, 2023. "What online review features really matter? An explainable deep learning approach for hotel demand forecasting," Journal of the Association for Information Science & Technology, Association for Information Science & Technology, vol. 74(9), pages 1100-1117, September.
    18. Augusto Voltes-Dorta & Federico Inchausti-Sintes, 2021. "The spatial and quality dimensions of Airbnb markets," Tourism Economics, , vol. 27(4), pages 688-702, June.
    19. Ru Jia & Shanshan Wang, 2021. "Investigating the Impact of Professional and Nonprofessional Hosts’ Pricing Behaviors on Accommodation-Sharing Market Outcome," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(21), pages 1-16, November.
    20. Tien Foo Sing & Yiheng Zou, 2024. "Improving search efficiency in housing markets using online listings," Real Estate Economics, American Real Estate and Urban Economics Association, vol. 52(4), pages 1020-1044, July.
    21. Lily Shen & Stephen L. Ross, 2019. "Information Value of Property Description: A Machine Learning Approach," Working papers 2019-20, University of Connecticut, Department of Economics, revised Sep 2020.
    22. Lily Shen & Sean Wilkoff, 2022. "Cleanliness is next to income: The impact of COVID‐19 on short‐term rentals," Journal of Regional Science, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 62(3), pages 799-829, June.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Brekke, Kurt R. & Siciliani, Luigi & Straume, Odd Rune, 2010. "Price and quality in spatial competition," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 40(6), pages 471-480, November.
    2. Gabszewicz, J. & Turrini, A., 2000. "Workers' skills, product quality and industry equilibrium," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 18(4), pages 575-593, May.
    3. Kurt R. Brekke & Luigi Siciliani & Odd Rune Straume, 2017. "Horizontal mergers and product quality," Canadian Journal of Economics/Revue canadienne d'économique, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 50(4), pages 1063-1103, November.
    4. Cellini, Roberto & Siciliani, Luigi & Straume, Odd Rune, 2018. "A dynamic model of quality competition with endogenous prices," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 94(C), pages 190-206.
    5. Frascatore, Mark R., 1999. "The grouping of stars: An application to professional sports," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 17(7), pages 1009-1027, October.
    6. Tanmoyee Chatterjee & Ajitava Raychaudhuri, 2004. "Product Quality, Income Inequality And Market Structure," Journal of Economic Development, Chung-Ang Unviersity, Department of Economics, vol. 29(1), pages 51-84, June.
    7. Bae, Sang Hoo & Sarkis, Joseph & Yoo, Chung Sik, 2011. "Greening transportation fleets: Insights from a two-stage game theoretic model," Transportation Research Part E: Logistics and Transportation Review, Elsevier, vol. 47(6), pages 793-807.
    8. Auer, Raphael A. & Sauré, Philip, 2017. "Dynamic entry in vertically differentiated markets," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 167(C), pages 177-205.
    9. De Fraja, Giovanni, 1996. "Product line competition in vertically differentiated markets," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 14(3), pages 389-414, May.
    10. Brécard, Dorothée, 2010. "On production costs in vertical differentiation models," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 109(3), pages 183-186, December.
    11. Jinji, Naoto & Toshimitsu, Tsuyoshi, 2013. "Strategic R&D policy in a quality-differentiated industry with three exporting countries," Japan and the World Economy, Elsevier, vol. 28(C), pages 132-142.
    12. Dolnicar, Sara, 2019. "A review of research into paid online peer-to-peer accommodation," Annals of Tourism Research, Elsevier, vol. 75(C), pages 248-264.
    13. Yong-Hwan Noh & Giancarlo Moschini, 2006. "Vertical Product Differentiation, Entry-Deterrence Strategies, and Entry Qualities," Review of Industrial Organization, Springer;The Industrial Organization Society, vol. 29(3), pages 227-252, November.
    14. Yurko, Anna V., 2011. "How does income inequality affect market outcomes in vertically differentiated markets?," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 29(4), pages 493-503, July.
    15. Corrado Benassi & Alessandra Chirco & Caterina Colombo, 2019. "Vertical differentiation beyond the uniform distribution," Journal of Economics, Springer, vol. 126(3), pages 221-248, April.
    16. Corrado Benassi & Alessandra Chirco & Caterina Colombo, 2006. "Vertical Differentiation And The Distribution Of Income," Bulletin of Economic Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 58(4), pages 345-367, October.
    17. Peter-J. Jost & Stefanie Schubert & Miriam Zschoche, 2015. "Incumbent positioning as a determinant of strategic response to entry," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 44(3), pages 577-596, March.
    18. Benassi, Corrado & Castellani, Massimiliano & Mussoni, Maurizio, 2016. "Price equilibrium and willingness to pay in a vertically differentiated mixed duopoly," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 125(C), pages 86-96.
    19. Li, Youping, 2014. "Price leadership in a vertically differentiated market," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 38(C), pages 67-70.
    20. L. Lambertini, 2001. "Dynamic Duopoly with Vertical Differentiation," Working Papers 396, Dipartimento Scienze Economiche, Universita' di Bologna.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Airbnb; Price competition; Reviews; Sentiment analysis; Spatial hedonic price;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • L11 - Industrial Organization - - Market Structure, Firm Strategy, and Market Performance - - - Production, Pricing, and Market Structure; Size Distribution of Firms
    • D41 - Microeconomics - - Market Structure, Pricing, and Design - - - Perfect Competition
    • R32 - Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics - - Real Estate Markets, Spatial Production Analysis, and Firm Location - - - Other Spatial Production and Pricing Analysis

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:regeco:v:75:y:2019:i:c:p:22-34. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/regec .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.