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Promotional Reviews: An Empirical Investigation of Online Review Manipulation

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Mayzlin, Dina, Dover, Yaniv, Chevalier, Judith·2014·American Economic Review
DOI 10.1257/aer.104.8.2421
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Abstract

Firms' incentives to manufacture biased user reviews impede review usefulness. We examine the differences in reviews for a given hotel between two sites: Expedia.com (only a customer can post a review) and TripAdvisor.com (anyone can post). We argue that the net gains from promotional reviewing are highest for independent hotels with single-unit owners and lowest for branded chain hotels with multiunit owners. We demonstrate that the hotel neighbors of hotels with a high incentive to fake have more negative reviews on TripAdvisor relative to Expedia; hotels with a high incentive to fake have more positive reviews on TripAdvisor relative to Expedia. (JEL L15, L83, M31)

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Crossref · 10.1257/aer.104.8.2421

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Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?

  • Mayzlin et al. (2014) show biases in hotel ratings across travel sites that are consistent with strategic feedback manipulation by sellers.

    “Mayzlin et al. (2014) exploit different policies about who can leave feedback across several travel sites and show biases in their ratings of hotels that are consistent with strategic feedback manipulation by sellers.”

    From Reputation and Feedback Systems in Online Platform Markets (2016) · cites this paper as Mayzlin et al. (2014)

  • It is in the strategic interest of competing hotels to inflate their own ratings with fake positive reviews and to impact negatively competitors' ratings with fake negative reviews.

    “It will be in the strategic interest of these hotels to inflate their own ratings with fake positive reviews and simultaneously impact negatively the ratings of their competitors by submitting fake negative reviews of them.”

    From Reputation and Feedback Systems in Online Platform Markets (2016) · cites this paper as Mayzlin et al. (2014)

  • Mayzlin et al. (2014) results show greater bunching at extreme ratings for hotels on sites where posting reviews is cheaper, and this is exacerbated by local competition (more local hotels).

    “The results in Mayzlin et al. (2014) indeed show greater bunching at the extreme ratings for hotels on the sites where posting reviews is cheaper, and this is exacerbated by local competition (more local hotels).”

    From Reputation and Feedback Systems in Online Platform Markets (2016) · cites this paper as Mayzlin et al. (2014)

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Authors
Mayzlin, D., Dover, Y., & Chevalier, J.
Affiliations
  • University of Southern California (US)
  • Dartmouth College (US)
  • Yale University (US)
ORCID
Venue
American Economic Review
Publisher
American Economic Association
Published
2014-08-01
Volume
104
Issue
8
Pages
2421-2455
ISSN
0002-8282 (ISSN-L)
DOI
10.1257/aer.104.8.2421
OpenAlex
W3122952517
Cited by
937
References
2
Citations by year
2026: 82 · 2025: 80 · 2024: 77 · 2023: 86 · 2022: 83 · 2021: 88 · 2020: 86 · 2019: 99 · 2018: 78 · 2017: 59 · 2016: 48 · 2015: 46 · 2014: 17 · 2013: 5 · 2012: 2
FWCI
68.99
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
Locations
  • American Economic Review (publishedVersion)
  • SSRN Electronic Journal (publishedVersion)
  • RePEc: Research Papers in Economics (submittedVersion)
Topics
  • Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › Digital Marketing and Social Media
  • Social Sciences › Business, Management and Accounting › Marketing › Consumer Market Behavior and Pricing
  • Social Sciences › Economics, Econometrics and Finance › Economics and Econometrics › Merger and Competition Analysis
Keywords
online reviews, review manipulation, fake reviews, review usefulness, hotel reviews, TripAdvisor, Expedia, independent hotels

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