Asymmetric effects of online consumer reviews

Consumers tend to seek heuristic information cues to simplify the amount of information involved in tourist decisions. Accordingly, star ratings in online reviews are a critical heuristic element of the perceived evaluation of online consumer information. The objective of this article is to assess the effect of review ratings on usefulness and enjoyment. The empirical application is carried out on a sample of 5,090 reviews of 45 restaurants in London and New York. The results show that people perceive extreme ratings (positive or negative) as more useful and enjoyable than moderate ratings, giving rise to a U-shaped line, with asymmetric effects: the size of the effect of online reviews depends on whether they are positive or negative.

Reviews

Contiene: Horobin, Simon & Jeremy Smith (2002): An Introduction to Middle English. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, viii + 182 p. Price: paperback: £10.99, hardback: £35 / Reviewed by M.F. Litzler; Görlach, M (ed.) (2001): A Dictionary of European Anglicisms. Oxford, Oxford University Press. 351 p. $170 / Reviewed by Elisabetta Zoni; García Velasco, Daniel: Funcionalismo y Lingüística: La gramática funcional de S.C. Dik. Oviedo: Servicio de Publicaciones, 295 p. / Reviewed by María Martínez Lirola.

Reviews

Contiene: Jussawalla, Feroza (2003): Chiffon Saris. Toronto: TSAR Publications, 92 pages / Reviewed by Silvia Caporale Bizzini; Fernández Álvarez; M. Pilar and Antón Teodoro Manrique (2002): Antología de la literatura nórdica antigua. Salamanca: Ediciones Universidad / Reviewed by José R. Belda; Schwarlz, Anja (2001). The (im)possibilities of machine translation. Peter Lang. Frankfurt am Main. 323 pages / Reviewed by Silvia Borrás Giner; Terttu Nevalainen and Helena Raumolin-Brunberg (2003): Historical Sociolinguistics: Language Change in Tudor and Stuart England. Great Britain: Pearson Education, 260pages / Reviewed by Sara Ponce Serrano.Contiene: Jussawalla, Feroza (2003): Chiffon Saris. Toronto: TSAR Publications, 92 pages / Reviewed by Silvia Caporale Bizzini; Fernández Álvarez; M. Pilar and Antón Teodoro Manrique (2002): Antología de la literatura nórdica antigua. Salamanca: Ediciones Universidad / Reviewed by José R. Belda; Schwarlz, Anja (2001). The (im)possibilities of machine translation. Peter Lang. Frankfurt am Main. 323 pages / Reviewed by Silvia Borrás Giner; Terttu Nevalainen and Helena Raumolin-Brunberg (2003): Historical Sociolinguistics: Language Change in Tudor and Stuart England. Great Britain: Pearson Education, 260pages / Reviewed by Sara Ponce Serrano.

Themes and reviews, 1788-1805

Small notebook with brown paper covers containing handwritten entries noting the essay topics given to students between 1788 and 1805 according to class. The prompts are in both English and Latin and are generally philosophical quotations or verse from poetry that students responded to in short essays. There is a small handwritten chart for "A Scheme for a Lottery for a New College" laid into the back of the volume.

British Balance of Competence Reviews, Part I: ‘Competences about right, so far’. EPIN Working Paper No. 35, October 2013

The first in a series for a CEPS-EPIN project entitled “The British Question and the Search for a Fresh European Narrative” this paper is pegged on an ambitious ongoing exercise by the British government to review all the competences of the European Union. The intention is that this should provide a basis for informed debate before the referendum on the UK remaining in the EU or not, which is scheduled for 2017. This paper summarises the first six reviews, each of which runs to around 80 pages, covering foreign policy, development policy, taxation, the single market, food safety, and public health. The present authors then add their own assessments of these materials. While understandably giving due place to British interests, they are of general European relevance. The substantive conclusions of this first set of reviews are that the competences of the EU are judged by respondents to be ‘about right’ on the whole, which came as a surprise to eurosceptic MPs and the tabloid media. Our own view is that the reviews are objective and impressively researched, and these populist complaints are illustrating the huge gap between the views of informed stakeholders and general public opinion, and therefore also the hazard of subjecting the ‘in or out’ choice for decision by referendum. If the referendum is to endorse the UK’s continuing membership there will have to emerge some fresh popular narratives about the EU. The paper therefore concludes with some thoughts along these lines, both for the UK and the EU as a whole.

British Balance of Competence Reviews, Part II: Again, a huge contradiction between the evidence and Eurosceptic populism. EPIN Paper No. 40, June 2014

This paper is the second in a series for a CEPS project entitled “The British Question and the Search for a Fresh European Narrative”. It is pegged on an ambitious exercise by the British government to review all the competences of the European Union on the basis of evidence submitted by independent stakeholders. In all, 32 sectoral policy reviews are being produced over the period 2013-2015, as input into public information and debate leading up to a referendum on whether the UK should remain in, or secede from, the EU, planned for 2017. This second set of reviews covers a broad range of EU policies (for the single market for goods, external trade, transport policy, environment, climate change, research, asylum, non-EU immigration, civil judicial cooperation, tourism, culture and sport). The findings confirm what emerged from the first set of reviews, namely that there is little or no case for repatriation of EU competences at the level they are defined in the treaties. This does not exclude that at a more detailed level there can be individual actions or laws that might be done better or not at all. However, that is the task of all the institutions to work at on a regular basis, and hardly a rationale for secession. For the UK in particular the EU has shown considerable flexibility in agreeing to special arrangements, such as in the case of the policies here reviewed of asylum, non-EU immigration and civil judicial cooperation. In other areas reviewed here, such as the single market for goods, external trade, transport, environment, climate change and research, there is a good fit between the EU’s policies and UK priorities, with the EU perceived by stakeholders as an ‘amplifier’ of British interests.