Expert product reviews and conflict of interest

Tom Hamami and James Bailey

Managerial and Decision Economics, 2021, vol. 42, issue 1, 170-176

Abstract: Many firms that produce expert product reviews benefit from increased sales of the products they review, resulting in a conflict of interest. We evaluate expert product reviews from a video game magazine owned by a game retailer. We find evidence of review inflation for lower‐quality games and in periods shortly following the release of a game's corresponding hardware. These results are consistent with theoretical predictions for a firm that optimizes the trade‐off between sales revenue and the reputational costs associated with biasing reviews.

Date: 2021
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https://doi.org/10.1002/mde.3221

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:wly:mgtdec:v:42:y:2021:i:1:p:170-176

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