Publications

Purchase

May 1999 (Revised July 1999)
Background Note

Global Friction Among Information Infrastructures

By: George C. Lodge and Cate Reavis

Examines the conflicts in international communications that result from changing technologies and divergent country policies toward developing infrastructures. Examines a number of different national information infrastructures (NIIs). Points of friction, such as... View Details

Keywords: Conflict Management; Infrastructure; Communication Technology; Cross-Cultural and Cross-Border Issues

1996
Working Paper

Global Friction Among Information Infrastructures

By: Jeffrey F. Rayport, George C. Lodge and Afroze Mohammed

June 1999
Teaching Note

Global Friction Among Information Infrastructures TN

By: George C. Lodge

Teaching Note for (9-799-152). View Details

Keywords: Information Technology Industry

March 2014
Article

Information Environment and the Investment Decisions of Multinational Corporations

By: Nemit O. Shroff, Rodrigo S. Verdi and Gwen Yu

This paper examines how the external information environment in which foreign subsidiaries operate affects the investment decisions of multinational corporations (MNCs). We hypothesize and find that the investment decisions of foreign subsidiaries in country-industries... View Details

Keywords: Capital Budgeting; Multinational Firms; Cross-border Frictions; Agency Frictions; Transparency; Financial Reporting Quality; Information Quality; Information; Multinational Firms and Management; Decision Choices and Conditions; Investment

SSRN

2018
Working Paper

Coordination Frictions in Venture Capital Syndicates

By: Ramana Nanda and Matthew Rhodes-Kropf

An extensive literature on venture capital has studied asymmetric information and agency problems between investors and entrepreneurs, examining how separating entrepreneurs from the investor can create frictions that might inhibit the funding of good projects. It has... View Details

Keywords: Syndication; Venture Capital; Networks; Entrepreneurship

SSRN

2019
Working Paper

The Impact of Increasing Search Frictions on Online Shopping Behavior: Evidence from a Field Experiment

By: Donald Ngwe, Kris J. Ferreira and Thales Teixeira

Many online stores are designed such that shoppers can easily access any available discounted products. We propose that deliberately increasing search frictions by placing small obstacles to locating discounted items can improve online retailers’ margins and even... View Details

Keywords: E-commerce; Online Retailing; Friction; Effor; Search Costs; Price Discrimination; Consumer Behavior; Price; Search Technology

December 2019
Article

The Impact of Increasing Search Frictions on Online Shopping Behavior: Evidence from a Field Experiment

By: Donald Ngwe, Kris J. Ferreira and Thales Teixeira

Many online stores are designed such that shoppers can easily access any available discounted products. We propose that deliberately increasing search frictions by placing small obstacles to locating discounted items can improve online retailers’ margins and even... View Details

Keywords: Online Retailing; Friction; Effor; Search Costs; Price Discrimination; Marketing; Consumer Behavior; Strategy; Price; E-commerce; Retail Industry; Fashion Industry

How do information frictions distort international trade? This paper exploits a unique historical experiment to estimate the magnitude of these distortions: the establishment of the transatlantic telegraph connection in 1866. I use a newly collected data set based... View Details

2024
Working Paper

Do Information Frictions and Corruption Perceptions Kill Competition? A Field Experiment on Public Procurement in Uganda

By: Emanuele Colonnelli, Francesco Loiacono, Edwin Muhumuza and Edoardo Teso

We study whether information frictions and corruption perceptions deter firms from doing business with the government. We conduct two nationwide randomized controlled trials (RCTs) in collaboration with the national public procurement supervisory and anti-corruption... View Details

Keywords: Knowledge Use and Leverage; Government and Politics; Crime and Corruption; Trust; Perception; Business and Government Relations

2017
Article

Frictions or Mental Gaps: What's Behind the Information We (Don't) Use and When Do We Care?

By: Benjamin Handel and Joshua Schwartzstein

Consumers suffer significant losses from not acting on available information. These losses stem from frictions such as search costs, switching costs, and rational inattention, as well as what we call mental gaps resulting from wrong priors/worldviews, or relevant... View Details

Keywords: Information; Consumer Behavior

2015
Working Paper

Information Frictions and the Law of One Price: 'When the States and the Kingdom Became United'

By: Claudia Steinwender

March 2024
Teaching Note

Sonder Holdings Inc.: Using Technology to Solve Hospitality's Frictions

By: John A. Deighton and Leora Kornfeld

Teaching Note for HBS Case No. 922-039. Digital disruption is challenging the hospitality industry. Traditional hotels face competition from platforms, most visibly Airbnb but also the homeshare divisions of online travel agencies such as Expedia and Booking.com, that... View Details

Keywords: Digital Platforms; Disruptive Innovation; Competition; Market Participation; Accommodations Industry

Purchase

Fall 2018
Article

The Value of Fit Information in Online Retail: Evidence from a Randomized Field Experiment

By: Santiago Gallino and Antonio Moreno

Online channels generate frictions when selling products with nondigital attributes, such as apparel. Customers may be reluctant to purchase products they have not been able to try on, and those customers who do purchase may return products when they do not fit as... View Details

Keywords: Supply Chain Information; Fit Uncertainty; Online Retail; Randomized Field Experiment; Virtual Fitting Room; Digital Retail; Customization and Personalization; Internet and the Web; Value; Performance Improvement; Apparel and Accessories Industry; Retail Industry

June 2023
Article

The Salary Taboo: Privacy Norms and the Diffusion of Information

By: Zoë Cullen and Ricardo Perez-Truglia

The limited diffusion of salary information has implications for labor markets, such as wage discrimination policies and collective bargaining. Access to salary information is believed to be limited and unequal, but there is little direct evidence on the sources of... View Details

Keywords: Search Costs; Privacy; Norms; Compensation; Financial Industry; Field Experiment; Knowledge Dissemination; Equality and Inequality; Gender; Compensation and Benefits; Societal Protocols

05 Oct 2011
Working Paper Summaries

Doing What the Parents Want? The Effect of the Local Information Environment on the Investment Decisions of Multinational Corporations

Keywords: by Nemit O. Shroff, Rodrigo S. Verdi & Gwen Yu

2023
Working Paper

Life After Death: A Field Experiment with Small Businesses on Information Frictions, Stigma, and Bankruptcy

By: Shai Benjamin Bernstein, Emanuele Colonnelli, Mitchell Hoffman and Benjamin Iverson

In a randomized control trial (RCT) with U.S. small businesses, we document that a large share of firms are not well-informed about bankruptcy. Many assume that bankruptcy necessarily entails the death of a business and do not know about Chapter 11 bankruptcy, where... View Details

Keywords: Small Business; Insolvency and Bankruptcy; Knowledge Dissemination; Outcome or Result