IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/kap/compec/v46y2015i4p627-651.html

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

    for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. 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.
    2. 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.
    3. 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.
    4. 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.
    5. Banerjee, Abhijit & Fudenberg, Drew, 2004. "Word-of-mouth learning," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 46(1), pages 1-22, January.
    6. 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.
    7. Venkatesh Bala & Sanjeev Goyal, 1998. "Learning from Neighbours," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 65(3), pages 595-621.
    8. Ran Spiegler, 2006. "The Market for Quacks," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 73(4), pages 1113-1131.
    9. William P. Rogerson, 1983. "Reputation and Product Quality," Bell Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 14(2), pages 508-516, Autumn.
    10. 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.
    11. AfDB AfDB, 2008. "List of Working Paper Series (1 - 95)," Working Paper Series 356, African Development Bank.
    12. Osborne, Martin J & Rubinstein, Ariel, 1998. "Games with Procedurally Rational Players," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 88(4), pages 834-847, September.
    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 9164, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    4. 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.
    5. 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.
    6. 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.
    7. D. Lee Heavner & Lance Lochner, 2002. "Social Networks and the Aggregation on Individual Decisions," NBER Working Papers 8979, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    8. Tsakas, Nikolas, 2012. "Naive learning in social networks: Imitating the most successful neighbor," MPRA Paper 37796, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    9. 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.
    10. Szech, Nora, 2011. "Becoming a bad doctor," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 80(1), pages 244-257.
    11. Catherine A. Glass & David H. Glass, 2021. "Social Influence of Competing Groups and Leaders in Opinion Dynamics," Computational Economics, Springer;Society for Computational Economics, vol. 58(3), pages 799-823, October.
    12. Sanghyun Park & Phanish Puranam, 2024. "Vicarious Learning Without Knowledge Differentials," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 70(5), pages 2999-3019, May.
    13. 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.
    14. Grabisch, Michel & Rusinowska, Agnieszka, 2013. "A model of influence based on aggregation functions," Mathematical Social Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 66(3), pages 316-330.
    15. Daron Acemoglu & Asuman Ozdaglar, 2011. "Opinion Dynamics and Learning in Social Networks," Dynamic Games and Applications, Springer, vol. 1(1), pages 3-49, March.
    16. Tsakas, Nikolas, 2017. "Diffusion by imitation: The importance of targeting agents," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 139(C), pages 118-151.
    17. Hsiaw, Alice, 2014. "Learning tastes through social interaction," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 107(PA), pages 64-85.
    18. H. Peyton Young, 2009. "Innovation Diffusion in Heterogeneous Populations: Contagion, Social Influence, and Social Learning," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 99(5), pages 1899-1924, December.
    19. Schumacher, Heiner & Hadnes, Myriam, 2010. "Contract Enforcement by the Gods," Proceedings of the German Development Economics Conference, Hannover 2010 11, Verein für Socialpolitik, Research Committee Development Economics.
    20. 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.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    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: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.