http://hdl.handle.net/2027.42/60161 2017-07-10T01:26:50Z http://hdl.handle.net/2027.42/100229 Incentive-Centered Design for User-Contributed Content Jian, Lian; MacKie-Mason, Jeffrey K. We review incentive-centered design for user-contributed content (UCC) on the Internet. UCC systems, produced (in part) through voluntary contributions made by non-employees, face fundamental incentives problems. In particular, to succeed, users need to be motivated to contribute in the first place ("getting stuff in"). Further, given heterogeneity in content quality and variety, the degree of success will depend on incentives to contribute a desirable mix of quality and variety ("getting \emph{good} stuff in"). Third, because UCC systems generally function as open-access publishing platforms, there is a need to prevent or reduce the amount of negative value (polluting or manipulating) content. The work to date on incentives problems facing UCC is limited and uneven in coverage. Much of the empirical research concerns specific settings and does not provide readily generalizable results. And, although there are well-developed theoretical literatures on, for example, the private provision of public goods (the "getting stuff in" problem), this literature is only applicable to UCC in a limited way because it focuses on contributions of (homogeneous) money, and thus does not address the many problems associated with heterogeneous information content contributions (the "getting \emph{good} stuff in" problem). We believe that our review of the literature has identified more open questions for research than it has pointed to known results. 2012-01-01T00:00:00Z http://hdl.handle.net/2027.42/97778 Using uncensored communication channels to divert spam traffic Chiao, Benjamin; MacKie-Mason, Jeffrey K. We analyze a simple, feasible improvement to the current email system using an uncensored (open) communication channel. Such a channel could be an email folder or account, to which properly tagged commercial solicitations are routed without filtering along the way. We characterize the circumstances under which senders would voluntarily move much of their spam into the open channel, leaving the traditional email channel dominated by person-to-person mail. We then show that under certain conditions all email recipients are better off when an open channel is introduced. Only recipients wanting spam will use the open channel enjoying the less disguised messages and cheaper sale prices, and for all recipients the dissatisfaction associated with both undesirable mail received and desirable mail filtered out decreases. 2012-12-01T00:00:00Z http://hdl.handle.net/2027.42/93505 Principal International Businesses Levchenko, Andrei This is a dataset of the 50,000 largest firms in the world over the period 1978-2007. The data included are employment, total sales, year the firm was started, SIC codes for the firm's activities, and binary indicators for whether the firm is an exporter, and whether it is an importer. 2012-09-05T00:00:00Z http://hdl.handle.net/2027.42/91919 Formulation and Estimation of Production Function Models Zellner, A.; Kmenta, Jan; Dreze, J. 1966-10-01T00:00:00Z