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| author | Adam Marques Campos |
| title | Do Car Reviews Matter?: An Econometric Analysis on the Influence of Car Reviews on Car Sales in the U.S. Auto Market |
| abstract |
This thesis aims to find if car reviews influence car sales in the U.S. auto market through an econometric analysis. Since there is no free data source that conveniently
provides car sales, car reviews, and control variables in a spreadsheet, a data set was constructed by collecting data from various sources. Review data was collected
from U.S. News and World Report, a free source that used advertisements and press cars, and Consumer Reports, a non-free source that displays no
advertisements and buys the cars it tests. Sales data was collected from GoodCarBadCar.com. Control variable data was collected from the
Environmental Protection Agency for fuel economy data and Edmunds.com for horsepower data and pricing data. Once the data set was collected, two separate
econometric models were built; one to investigate if U.S. News and World Report influenced sales, and one to see if Consumer Reports influenced sales.
It was found that both U.S. News and World Report and Consumer Reports influenced car sales in the U.S. auto market. Other notable results were that
U.S. consumers prefer larger cars over smaller cars, were indifferent on fuel economy, preferred cheaper cars, were indifferent on horsepower, and preferred American
brands. Having extra data available, two more regressions were created to directly compare U.S. News and World Report's influence on cars sales to
Consumer Reports' influence on car sales. The results suggested that U.S. News and World Report had a stronger influence on cars sales than
Consumer Reports. This is surprising because other literature suggests that consumers prefer review sources that buy their own cars and display no advertisements
since they felt those sources were bias free. The thesis concludes that media corporations looking to write car reviews may want to provide them for free, rely on
advertising revenue, and use press cars for reviews since sources with those characteristics seem to have a stronger influence on car sales. Auto manufacturers may
want to concentrate on obtaining positive reviews, specifically from sources like U.S. News and World Report, concentrate on selling larger car models, and
concentrate on making cars more reliable and enjoyable to drive if they want to increase their car sales. This thesis uses a unique data set to perform a regression
that has not been performed before, which builds off of previous literature and leaves room for further research on how car reviews influence car sales.
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| school | The College of Liberal Arts, Drew University |
| degree | B.A. (2016) |
| advisor | Professor Miao Chi |
| committee | Professor Christopher Andrews
Professor Bernard Smith
Professor Brianne Barker |
| full text | AMCampos.pdf |
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