IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/kap/compec/v46y2015i4p627-651.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Word-of-Mouth Communication and Demand for Products with Different Quality Levels

Author

Listed:
  • Bharat Bhole
  • Bríd Hanna

Abstract

We analyze a market with two product alternatives that differ in quality. Consumers choose between these products based on consumer reviews and their own experience. We examine how the market share of the superior product is affected by (i) the number of reviews obtained by consumers; and (ii) the type of information conveyed in these reviews. We find that when consumers randomly sample reviews from the entire population, an increase in the number of reviews can decrease the market share of the superior product. This, however, is not the case when consumers seek out reviews on each product. Further, we find that the market share of the superior product can be significantly lower when reviews convey subjective satisfaction compared to when they convey objective payoffs. This effect depends on the degree of heterogeneity in consumer expectations. Copyright Springer Science+Business Media New York 2015

Suggested Citation

  • Bharat Bhole & Bríd Hanna, 2015. "Word-of-Mouth Communication and Demand for Products with Different Quality Levels," Computational Economics, Springer;Society for Computational Economics, vol. 46(4), pages 627-651, December.
    • Handle: RePEc:kap:compec:v:46:y:2015:i:4:p:627-651
    DOI: 10.1007/s10614-014-9453-8
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1007/s10614-014-9453-8
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1007/s10614-014-9453-8?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. Venkatesh Bala & Sanjeev Goyal, 1998. "Learning from Neighbours," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 65(3), pages 595-621.
    2. Kenneth Judd & Scott E. Page, 2004. "Computational Public Economics," Journal of Public Economic Theory, Association for Public Economic Theory, vol. 6(2), pages 195-202, May.
    3. Banerjee, Abhijit & Fudenberg, Drew, 2004. "Word-of-mouth learning," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 46(1), pages 1-22, January.
    4. Ran Spiegler, 2006. "The Market for Quacks," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 73(4), pages 1113-1131.
    5. William P. Rogerson, 1983. "Reputation and Product Quality," Bell Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 14(2), pages 508-516, Autumn.
    6. AfDB AfDB, 2008. "List of Working Paper Series (1 - 95)," Working Paper Series 356, African Development Bank.
    7. Glenn Ellison & Drew Fudenberg, 1995. "Word-of-Mouth Communication and Social Learning," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 110(1), pages 93-125.
    8. Osborne, Martin J & Rubinstein, Ariel, 1998. "Games with Procedurally Rational Players," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 88(4), pages 834-847, September.
    9. Izquierdo, Segismundo S. & Izquierdo, Luis R., 2007. "The impact of quality uncertainty without asymmetric information on market efficiency," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 60(8), pages 858-867, August.
    10. Liangjie Zhao & Wenqi Duan, 2014. "Simulating the Evolution of Market Shares: The Effects of Customer Learning and Local Network Externalities," Computational Economics, Springer;Society for Computational Economics, vol. 43(1), pages 53-70, January.
    11. Dennis E. Smallwood & John Conlisk, 1979. "Product Quality in Markets Where Consumers are Imperfectly Informed," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 93(1), pages 1-23.
    12. Sushil Bikhchandani & David Hirshleifer & Ivo Welch, 1998. "Learning from the Behavior of Others: Conformity, Fads, and Informational Cascades," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 12(3), pages 151-170, Summer.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. Daron Acemoglu & Munther A. Dahleh & Ilan Lobel & Asuman Ozdaglar, 2011. "Bayesian Learning in Social Networks," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 78(4), pages 1201-1236.
    2. Camargo, Braz, 2014. "Learning in society," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 87(C), pages 381-396.
    3. Hirshleifer, David & Teoh, Siew Hong, 2008. "Thought and Behavior Contagion in Capital Markets," MPRA Paper 9142, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    4. David Hirshleifer & Siew Hong Teoh, 2003. "Herd Behaviour and Cascading in Capital Markets: a Review and Synthesis," European Financial Management, European Financial Management Association, vol. 9(1), pages 25-66, March.
    5. Davide Crapis & Bar Ifrach & Costis Maglaras & Marco Scarsini, 2017. "Monopoly Pricing in the Presence of Social Learning," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 63(11), pages 3586-3608, November.
    6. Jadbabaie, Ali & Molavi, Pooya & Sandroni, Alvaro & Tahbaz-Salehi, Alireza, 2012. "Non-Bayesian social learning," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 76(1), pages 210-225.
    7. Daron Acemoglu & Asuman Ozdaglar, 2011. "Opinion Dynamics and Learning in Social Networks," Dynamic Games and Applications, Springer, vol. 1(1), pages 3-49, March.
    8. Kováč, Eugen & Schmidt, Robert C., 2014. "Market share dynamics in a duopoly model with word-of-mouth communication," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 83(C), pages 178-206.
    9. Grabisch, Michel & Rusinowska, Agnieszka, 2013. "A model of influence based on aggregation functions," Mathematical Social Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 66(3), pages 316-330.
    10. Philipp Kircher & Andrew Postlewaite, 2008. "Strategic Firms and Endogenous Consumer Emulation," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 123(2), pages 621-661.
    11. Matthew O. Jackson & Benjamin Golub, 2007. "Naïve Learning in Social Networks: Convergence, Influence and Wisdom of Crowds," Working Papers 2007.64, Fondazione Eni Enrico Mattei.
    12. Jakob Grazzini & Domenico Massaro, 2021. "Dispersed information, social networks, and aggregate behavior," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 59(3), pages 1129-1148, July.
    13. D. Lee Heavner & Lance Lochner, 2002. "Social Networks and the Aggregation on Individual Decisions," NBER Working Papers 8979, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    14. James C. D. Fisher & John Wooders, 2017. "Interacting information cascades: on the movement of conventions between groups," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 63(1), pages 211-231, January.
    15. Tsakas, Nikolas, 2012. "Naive learning in social networks: Imitating the most successful neighbor," MPRA Paper 37796, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    16. Mark Bowden & Stuart McDonald, 2008. "The Impact of Interaction and Social Learning on Aggregate Expectations," Computational Economics, Springer;Society for Computational Economics, vol. 31(3), pages 289-306, April.
    17. Bou{g}açhan Çelen & Shachar Kariv & Andrew Schotter, 2010. "An Experimental Test of Advice and Social Learning," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 56(10), pages 1687-1701, October.
    18. Michel Grabisch & Agnieszka Rusinowska, 2016. "Determining models of influence," Operations Research and Decisions, Wroclaw University of Science and Technology, Faculty of Management, vol. 26(2), pages 69-85.
    19. Tsakas, Nikolas, 2017. "Diffusion by imitation: The importance of targeting agents," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 139(C), pages 118-151.
    20. Szech, Nora, 2011. "Becoming a bad doctor," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 80(1), pages 244-257.

    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:kap:compec:v:46:y:2015:i:4:p:627-651. 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: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.springer.com .

    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.