Despite heated debate about the pros and cons of online physician ratings, very little systematic work examines the correlation between physicians’ online ratings and their actual medical performance. Using patients' ratings of physicians at the RateMDs website and the Florida Hospital...

We characterize profit-maximizing strategies for a monopolist who sells to risk-averse buyers in two time periods and may deliberately randomize the occurrence of clearance sales. Our theoretical investigation shows that such a randomized strategy is optimal whenever the seller's capacity...