Research Topics

If you wish to discuss these topics with me, please send me an email. I am also open to discuss other ideas which are somehow related with the topics below.

Research topics for MSc and PhD theses

What can we learn by exploiting the velocity of blockchain transactions?

Blockchain transactions for several forms of cryptocurencies (bitcoin) take place in a blazing fast pace. What can we learn by studying the velocity of the blockchain transactions? Is market activity in blockchain transcations a good indication of economic activity? How do macroeconomic indicators affect their speed?

Transaction repudiation in blockchain protocols: The consumer side.

While a transaction in a normal currency is generally protected by repudiation protocols, cryptocurencies represent a new approach on how repudiation protocols are administered. Do consumers understand

Online consumer reviews

There is a large body of literature that discusses how consumers read reviews and decide to purchase a product. There are currently several meta-analyses who estimate the impact of the average star rating on sales elasticities for particular categories of products. However what is relatively unknown are some of the following questions:

• What is the mechanism behind the filtering and selection of reviews by consumers ? do consumers search reviews with the same intensity for each product on their consideration set ?

• How does the rating environment (the variation of the ratings for a given product in the review aggregator) influence the reading propensity of the consumer.

Does content still mater for review helpfulness ?

In a previous work we showed that readability influences the review helpfulness. Several other studies have reached the same conclusion. However the cognitive mechanism of the willingness to cast a helpful vote is much more complex and an understanding needs to be taken.

Algorithmic pricing and online reviews

• How do prices influence the rating of a particular product and the propensity to post a review ?

Fake reviews

• Do fake reviews really impact competition ? What is their real economic significance?