Can Lower(ed) Expert Opinions Lead to Better Consumer Ratings?: The Case of Michelin Stars

The authors thank the editor, associate editor, and three anonymous referees for insightful and constructive suggestions; Georgios Zervas for very generously sharing his data on restaurant demand in New York City; and Tat Chan, Pradeep Chintagunta, Anthony Dukes, Natasha Zhang Foutz, Yiqi Li, Jiwoong Shin, Adam Smith, Yu Song, Qingliang Wang, Jiajia Zhan, Xu Zhang, and participants at the 2022 and 2021 Marketing Science Conferences, the 2021 LBS Transatlantic Doctoral Conference, the 2022 Customer Journeys in a Digital World Conference, the 2022 AI/ML Conference, the 2024 POMS Conference, the 2024 Marketing Dynamics Conference, as well as seminar participants at Católica Lisbon School of Business & Economics, Chinese University of Hong Kong (Shenzhen), City University of Hong Kong, ESSEC Business School, HEC Paris, Ohio State University, Peking University, Shanghai University of Finance and Economics, Shenzhen University, University of California, Irvine, University of Cambridge, University of Virginia, and Université Laval for useful comments. All errors are our own.