Money Talks (Even) in the Sharing Economy: Empirical Evidence for Price Effects in Online Ratings as Quality Signals

Recent literature reports concerns about implausibly high Overall ratings in the sharing economy, which undermines the credibility of this rating as a quality signal. This study empirically investigates the relationship between quality and price, commonly captured by the Value dimension in multidimensional rating systems, to reveal whether reviewers form a perception of quality that they then express in the Value dimension, rather than in the Overall rating. We test our hypotheses on a comprehensive panel dataset for 14,859 Airbnb listings in New York. Our preliminary empirical findings show that an increase in price leads to a significant and substantial decrease in the Value rating, suggesting that Value ratings can offer a valuable source of information for potential buyers in addition to the supposedly inflated Overall rating. Moreover, this mechanism has substantial implications for potential buyers who seek to evaluate a listing’s quality and for a seller’s price setting.