Digitization has led to dramatic cost reductions and reshaped both what and how products are sold. This dissertation examines the impact of digitization on the behavior of market intermediaries that bring together producers and consumers. Our empirical context is the transition from 35mm film to digital cinema technologies in the...
Stories and fantasy represent an important aspect of consumer life and comprise a huge marketing enterprise within consumer entertainment. Each year, upwards of $82 billion is spent on books, games, and other fantasy industries in the United States alone. Likewise, fantasy has important implications for consumers’ sense of identity. In...
The US yogurt market has been volatile in the last decade, marked by striking sales increases and dramatic market structure changes. According to an industry report, dollar sales of yogurt in 2017 reached $8.8 billion---a more than 80% increase from 2007. Such remarkable sales growth can be attributed to the...
Technology that processes text, audio and video, as well as location data, has revolutionized many industries by enabling innovative operations for customer retention. To retain transactions for a platform and viewers for advertisers, this dissertation leverages novel digital tools to analyze consumer behavior, proposes original economic frameworks to guide platform...
Pharmaceutical companies pay more than $2 billion to physicians every year. Most of these payments are for food and beverage, speaking, honoraria, consulting, and travel and lodging, which are termed “general payments.” These payments have come under increased scrutiny as critics of pharmaceutical promotion argue that they influence prescribing in...
Cuteness is a popular aesthetic in product design, yet there is a lack of understanding of who is most likely to engage in cute consumption and, more importantly, why. In this dissertation, I consider the role of sex and gender identity in cute consumption, proposing a strong mental association between...