Manipulation in Product Reviews

Student: Musaeva Hadija

Supervisor: Emiliano Catonini

Faculty: International College of Economics and Finance

Educational Programme: Double degree programme in Economics of the NRU HSE and the University of London (Bachelor)

Year of Graduation: 2019

In this paper I analyze the influence of manipulation imposed on customer reviews and how it affects pay-offs of institutions, in our case restaurants, which differ in quality. In a two staged game, I compare pay-off functions of restaurants of two types, given prior probabilities of the rating systems imposed by customers. Finally, find an equilibrium, which shows when and for which type it is beneficial to manipulate and when one should avoid manipulation, given various factors, such as manipulation costs, differing behaviors of customers, etc.

Student Theses at HSE must be completed in accordance with the University Rules and regulations specified by each educational programme.

Summaries of all theses must be published and made freely available on the HSE website.

The full text of a thesis can be published in open access on the HSE website only if the authoring student (copyright holder) agrees, or, if the thesis was written by a team of students, if all the co-authors (copyright holders) agree. After a thesis is published on the HSE website, it obtains the status of an online publication.

Student theses are objects of copyright and their use is subject to limitations in accordance with the Russian Federation’s law on intellectual property.

In the event that a thesis is quoted or otherwise used, reference to the author’s name and the source of quotation is required.

Search all student theses