Upselling
Can Lower(ed) Expert Opinions Lead to Better Consumer Ratings?: The Case of Michelin Stars
Xingyi Li et al.
Management Science, forthcoming
Abstract:
Expert opinion exerts tremendous influence on the purchase journey, but its effect on overall consumer experience is ambiguous because it can give rise to both "expectation" and "reputation" effects. This paper explores the effect of expert opinions on consumer experience via the lens of consumer reviews in the restaurant industry, where the expert opinions are conveyed by Michelin stars. The paper uses a unique data set based on the Michelin Guide for Great Britain & Ireland from 2010 to 2020. The data include consumer reviews on TripAdvisor for all restaurants that were awarded Michelin stars during this period and a large pool of potential control restaurants. We apply two synthetic control-based methods to estimate the effect of Michelin star changes on the sentiment and content of consumer reviews. We find that decreases in Michelin stars improve consumer review ratings. We examine three potential explanations for this finding. First, the positive expectation effect of lowered expert opinions outweighs the negative reputation effect. Second, there could be a change in the customer mix. Third, there may be a changes on the supply side, for example, in service levels. We find support for the first explanation, rule out the second, but cannot entirely rule out the third. The analysis of review content further shows that a loss in Michelin stars leads consumers to become less focused on value and become less demanding regarding service. We discuss the implications of our findings for restaurant managers, the Michelin Guide, and other businesses that provide experience goods.
Under (Financial) Pressure
Spencer Barnes, Ted Dischman & Brandon Mendez
Financial Review, forthcoming
Abstract:
We examine how financial pressure influences rule enforcement by leveraging a novel setting: NFL officiating. Unlike traditional regulatory environments, NFL officiating decisions are immediate, transparent, and publicly scrutinized, providing a unique empirical lens to test whether a worsening financial climate shapes enforcement behavior. Analyzing 13,136 defensive penalties from 2015 to 2023, we find that postseason officiating disproportionately favors the Mahomes-era Kansas City Chiefs, coinciding with the team's emergence as a key driver of TV viewership/ratings and, thereby, revenue. Our study suggests that financial reliance on dominant entities can alter enforcement dynamics, a concern with implications far beyond sports governance.
Echoes in AI: Quantifying lack of plot diversity in LLM outputs
Weijia Xu et al.
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 2 September 2025
Abstract:
With rapid advances in large language models (LLMs), there has been an increasing application of LLMs in creative content ideation and generation. A critical question emerges: can current LLMs provide ideas that are diverse enough to truly bolster collective creativity? We examine two state-of-the-art LLMs, GPT-4 and LLaMA-3, on story generation and discover that LLM-generated stories often consist of plot elements that are echoed across a number of generations. To quantify this phenomenon, we introduce the Sui Generis score, an automatic metric that measures the uniqueness of a plot element among alternative storylines generated using the same prompt under an LLM. Evaluating on 100 short stories, we find that LLM-generated stories often contain combinations of idiosyncratic plot elements echoed frequently across generations and across different LLMs, while plots from the original human-written stories are rarely recreated or even echoed in pieces. Moreover, our human evaluation shows that the ranking of Sui Generis scores among story segments correlates moderately with human judgment of surprise level, even though score computation is completely automatic without relying on human judgment.
Increase versus decrease framing: How framing a finding as an increase boosts its perceived magnitude
Courtney Lee, Christopher Bechler & Zakary Tormala
Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, forthcoming
Abstract:
Researchers often present their findings as increases or decreases. For example, a researcher might conclude that X increases Y or that X decreases Y. Even describing an equivalent outcome, a researcher might frame that outcome as an increase (e.g., relative to Condition A, Condition B increases persuasion) or a decrease (e.g., relative to Condition B, Condition A decreases persuasion). The current research explores the possibility that increase versus decrease framing has an important impact on how people perceive a finding. More specifically, we investigate the impact of increase versus decrease framing on the perceived magnitude of an effect. Across multiple studies testing people's perceptions of both real and fictitious research findings, we find that people perceive effects framed in increase terms to be larger in magnitude, more important, and more deserving of funding and publication than effects framed in decrease terms. In a separate study assessing the frequency and impact of increase versus decrease framing in actual published research, we find that researchers are far more likely to use increase than decrease framing and that articles that use increase framing are cited at higher rates. We find that increase frames are perceived as clearer than decrease frames -- that is, they make it easier to picture the outcome in question and, thus, enhance the overall clarity of the finding -- which fosters greater perceived effect size. These findings have important implications for how people evaluate scientific research and for attitudes, persuasion, and social judgment more generally.
Antiblack Discrimination in Public Accommodations: Differential Drink Pricing in Urban Nightclubs
Reuben Buford May et al.
Socius: Sociological Research for a Dynamic World, August 2025
Abstract:
Studies have demonstrated evidence of racial discrimination in public accommodations. Within urban nightclubs specifically, blacks experience racial discrimination when attempting to gain access, yet little is known about the treatment they receive once inside. To assess whether there is racial discrimination inside urban nightclubs, the authors sent black and white men testers to 30 nightclubs in Chicago to determine whether black men paid more for drinks than white men paid for the same drinks. Drawing on quantitative and qualitative data from our field tests, the authors found evidence that black men paid more for drinks on average than did white men and that nightclub staff members add fees to the cost of drinks for black men but not for white men. The authors contribute to the literature by demonstrating specifically how the diffusion of racial discrimination can affect black consumers at multiple points in the same service encounter.