In this thesis, we use methods from econometrics to empirically measure and quantify how digital information influences industries and markets. Specifically, we focus on two important areas of marketing: online reputation management, and competition between online and offline markets. In the first part of the thesis, we study the impact of management review responses, a popular reputation management mechanism, on consumer ratings. To do so, we exploit a difference in managerial practice across two hotel review plat- forms, TripAdvisor and Expedia: while hotels regularly respond to their TripAdvisor reviews, they never do so on Expedia. Based on this observation we employ a “difference-in-differences” design to identify the causal impact of management responses on ratings, and show that responding hotels see an average increase of 0.1 stars. We then turn to analyze the mechanisms behind this increase in ratings and show that by responding to reviews, hotels attract consumers who are inherently more positive, and therefore more likely to leave good reviews. In the second part of the thesis, we study peer-to-peer markets and their impact on traditional industries. We do so by looking at Airbnb, a sharing economy pioneer offering short-term accommodation. We combine data from Airbnb and the Texas hotel industry, and estimate the impact of Airbnb’s entry into the Texas market on hotel room revenue. To identify Airbnb’s causal impact on hotel room revenue, we use a “difference-in-differences” empirical strategy that exploits the significant spatiotemporal variation in the patterns of Airbnb adoption across city-level markets. We estimate that in Austin, where Airbnb supply is highest, the impact on hotel revenue is roughly 8-10% for the most affected hotels. Further, we find that affected hotels have responded by reducing prices, an impact that benefits all consumers, not just participants in the sharing economy. The results presented in this thesis have practical implications for firms seeking to improve their operations and marketing strategies, platforms seeking to design better and efficient marketplaces, and consumers who are often not aware of important dynamics that can be helpful in their decision-making process.

The professional scene of Esports got its humble start in the 1990’s, when the first tournaments for various games were hosted (McLeod, Xue & Newman, 2022). The number of professional players has increased dramatically until today. How the market for these professional players works as a labour market in today's society is relatively unknown. However, what is known is that this labour market stands out in regard to the small number of female workers it houses (Ratan et al., 2021). This is especially true for the game “League of Legends”, which has a particularly small number of women, even by Esports-standards1. With the purpose of finding the origin of this fact, I have conducted a survey measuring the skill of the players as well as their tendencies towards sexism. The survey results showed that sexism does increase with skill. This measured sexism is on average higher among better players. This could indicate that sexism is acting as a barrier for women to enter the professional scene and that this could be one of the causes of why there is a lack of female players in League of Legends.

The 1990s saw significant increases in commercial bank membership in the Federal Home Loan Bank (FHLB) System and extensive growths in FHLB assets and outstanding advances. Since FHLB policies may enable risk-taking behavior by the System's member institutions, this research evaluates the impact of the FHLBs on community bank members, local consumers, and local markets. Results suggest that commercial bank liquidity is enhanced by and managed with the use of System advances, and investments in loans and mortgage-related assets increase with FHLB participation, particularly by small bank members. Credit quality and bank financial conditions improve after participating in the FHLB program, and cost savings from borrowing System funds may contribute to higher rates paid on deposits in local markets. However, banks with greater exposure to interest rate risk are more likely to become FHLB members, and interest rate risk exposure further increases after membership attainment, as the amount of advances borrowed increases, and the longer members remain in the FHLB program. Long-term advances have not been used to lengthen liability duration to offset growth in long-term asset investments, which makes the FHLB System more highly susceptible to rising rates. / Ph. D.

This report has been produced as a result of a Thesis assignment conducted at Ericsson. Itspurpose is to give an overview of the Mobile Advertising industry. In this report an overviewof mobile advertising is presented and thru which channels advertising could be used. Thenthree mobile advertising campaigns are shown and described with background, strategy andresults. The different global markets, the different actors in the value chain and how the onlinebehavior has changed are analyzed. The problem area in this report is about profitability andefficiency of the solutions within mobile advertising and the inertia of mobile advertising andthis is discussed in the conclusion. / QC 20100708

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