Research Exposes Role of Pricing on User Ratings

A Harvard Business School research paper (PDF) exposes a relationship between prices and ratings and effect on business reputation, it suggests that price increases may have a negative effect on consumer ratings. The researchers stressed that the rating changes were not small changes but were significant to the point that they could have an effect on a businesses reputation. This effect is seen in both high end and lower end of the market.

This research was conducted on restaurants on the Yelp Transactions Platform in the cities of New York City, Los Angeles, and Houston. They also used data from 2013 through January 2019.