Strategic Disclosure: The Case of Business School Rankings

Michael Luca () and Jonathan Smith ()
Additional contact information
Michael Luca: Harvard Business School, Negotiation, Organizations & Markets Unit
Jonathan Smith: The College Board -Advocacy & Policy Center

No 14-010, Harvard Business School Working Papers from Harvard Business School

Abstract: We empirically analyze disclosure decisions made by 240 MBA programs about which rankings to display on their websites. We present three main findings. First, consistent with theories of countersignaling, top schools are least likely to disclose their rankings, whereas mid-ranked schools are most likely to disclose. Second, schools that do poorly in the U.S. News rankings are more likely to disclose their Princeton Review certification, suggesting that schools treat different certifications as substitutes. Third, conditional on displaying a ranking, the majority of schools coarsen information to make it seem more favorable. The stark patterns in the data help to provide empirical evidence on the strategic elements of voluntary disclosure and marketing decisions.

Keywords: Voluntary Disclosure; Information Unraveling; Marketing; Countersignaling; Rankings (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 25 pages
Date: 2013-07, Revised 2014-11
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cwa and nep-edu
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.hbs.edu/faculty/pages/download.aspx?name=14-010.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:hbs:wpaper:14-010

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Harvard Business School Working Papers from Harvard Business School Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by HBS ().