Exploring the Dynamics of Hashtag Use and Comment Toxicity on Social Media

Funded Research Proposal

The advent of social media has revolutionized how information is disseminated and discussed globally. This project explores the role of informational cues, such as hashtags used by content creators, in fostering safe online communities, with a particular focus on comment toxicity in social media discussions.Read More

The Effect of Economic and Social Conditions on Music Consumption

Funded Research Proposal

This project seeks to bridge this gap by investigating how circumstances that shape different facets of people’s identity affect their music consumption choices. These experiences may affect multiple dimensions of music consumption. The likelihood, frequency, time spent listening to music, likelihood of subscribing to a paid music account. For example, do people turn more to music during hard times? What type of music do they tune in to? Does music help people cope with these challenges?Read More

Consumer Preferences and Firm Technology Choice

Published Research

Advances in technology change the way consumers search and shop for products. Emerging is the trend of home-shopping devices such as Amazon’s Alexa and Google Home, which allow consumers to search or order products. We investigate how consumer brand and technology preferences may interact with the functionalities of technology-enabled shopping (TES) devices to determine the channel structure and market competition.Read More

Effects of Online Dating Platforms On Marital and Health Outcomes

Funded Research Proposal

This project aims to estimate how the usage of online dating platforms in the United States has impacted high-level relationship outcomes (e.g., marriage and divorce rates, time to marry and stay married) as well as user mental and physical health. To estimate the causal impact of online dating platform usage on such outcomes, we use variation in the penetration of online dating apps and websites across locations (e.g., counties).Read More

Effects of Privacy Policy in the Online Advertising Industry

Funded Research Proposal

This study is aimed at evaluating the impact of third party cookie elimination on brands and consumers. Our proposed study aims to examine and answer the following questions: What are the effects of the third-party cookie policy ban on consumers and brandsRead More

Work From Home: Who Gains and Who Does Not?

Funded Research Proposal

In this study, considering the benefits and costs of WFM, we consider two questions: (1) who has an incentive to work from home, (2) how is team coherence and work performance impacted when individuals work from home?Read More

Implications of Revenue Models and Technology for Content Moderation Strategies

Working Papers

This paper develops a theoretical model to study the economic incentives for a social media platform to moderate user-generated content. We show that a self-interested platform can use content moderation as an effective marketing tool to expand its installed user base, to increase the utility of its users, and to achieve its positioning as a moderate or extreme content platform.Read More

Social Media and Content Regulation

Funded Research Proposal

A significant challenge that online social media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter face today is acting as the custodians of the Internet while at the same time being the center of self-expression and user-generated content.Read More

Clicks Bias in Editorial Decisions: How Does Popularity Shape Online News Coverage?

Published Research

Identifying whether newspaper editors focus on what is newsworthy or what is trendy when choosing stories is important for the design of media regulation. This column shows how the popularity of an article, reflected by online clicks, influences the coverage of the story.Read More

The Short-run Effects of GDPR on Consumer Engagement and Search

Working Papers

In today’s connected world, individuals are no longer mere consumers of goods, information and services, but public producers of often valuable data. In fact, personal data is becoming such a core input that The Economist called it “the world’s most valuable resource” ahead of oil.Read More

Impact of Automation and Globalization on Extreme Political Preferences

Working Papers

In this proposal, we argue that support of populism can be explained by the interaction between individual economic and social experiences and aggregate economic shocks. We test empirically if personal experiences, information environment, and their interaction with aggregate economic shocks shape people’s political decisions. Read More

Optimal Network Design for Inducing Effort

Working Papers

Many companies create and manage communities where consumers observe and exchange information about the effort expended by other consumers. Such communities are especially popular in the areas of fitness, education, dieting, and financial savings. Read More

Women, Rails and Telegraphs: An Empirical Study of Information Diffusion and Collective Action

Working Papers

How do social interactions shape collective action, and how are they mediated by the availability of networked information technologies? To answer these questions, we study the Temperance Crusade, one of the earliest instances of organized political mobilization by women in the U.S. Read More

How Much Is Web Traffic Changing the News You Read?

Headshot of a person with shoulder-length dark hair wearing a blue shirt and dark blazer, smiling against a black background.

If you’ve ever thought that the quest for more clicks is affecting the sorts of articles that get published in the media, Wharton marketing professor Pinar Yildirim wants you to know that you’re right. But it’s not quite the overarching impact that you might expect. Read More