Structural Estimation of Expert Strategic Bias: The Case of Movie Critics

57 Pages Posted: 7 Oct 2014 Last revised: 30 Oct 2015

See all articles by Fanny Camara

Fanny Camara

Toulouse School of Economics (TSE)

Nicolas Dupuis

Toulouse School of Economics

Date Written: October 28, 2015

Abstract

We develop the first structural estimation of reputational cheap-talk games using data on movie reviews released in the US between 2004 and 2013. We identify and estimate movies' priors, as well as movie reviewers' abilities and strategic biases. We find that reviewers adopt reporting strategies that are consistent with the predictions of the literature on reputational cheap-talk. The average conservatism bias for low prior movies lies between 8 and 11%, depending on the specifications of the model. The average conservatism bias for high prior movies ranges from 13 to 15%. Moreover, wefind a significant, albeit small, effect of the reputation of the reviewers on their strategies, indicating that incentives to manipulate demand in order to prevent reputation updating are present in this industry. Our estimation takes into account and quantifies potential conflicts of interest that might arise when the movie reviewer belongs to the same media outlet as the film under review. Out-of-sample predictions confirm that movie reviewers do have reputational concerns.

Keywords: Structural estimation, Reputational cheap-talk game, Delegated expertise, Film Industry

JEL Classification: C21, L15, L82, Z11

Suggested Citation

Camara, Fanny and Dupuis, Nicolas, Structural Estimation of Expert Strategic Bias: The Case of Movie Critics (October 28, 2015). Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=2505961 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2505961

Fanny Camara (Contact Author)

Toulouse School of Economics (TSE) ( email )

Toulouse
France

Nicolas Dupuis

Toulouse School of Economics ( email )

Place Anatole-France
Toulouse Cedex, F-31042
France

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