Search

Keywords Telecommunications; Consumer engagement; Retention offers; Behavior-based price discrimination Highlights * Telecommunications operators use behavior-base price discrimination strategies. * We analyze the effects of consumer engagement on prices in the Spanish telecommunications market. * Engaged consumers pay 9.4% less than unengaged consumers for their services. * The excess price paid by unengaged consumers increases as they contract premium television content. * The elderly are the more likely to be unengaged. Abstract This paper analyzes how customers' heterogeneous search and switching habits affect the prices paid for telecommunication services in a context in which operators use price discrimination strategies to retain their customers and attract those of their rivals. Drawing on a representative sample of Spanish households (N=3,113), we show that engaged consumers pay 9.4% less than completely unengaged consumers for their telecommunication services, after controlling for the characteristics of the bundle of services contracted. We also find that highly engaged consumers (i.e. those that have called their operator to obtain a better deal and who have switched to a different operator at least once) pay 13.6% less for their services than unengaged consumers, that consumers who have switched operator at least once pay 8.4% less, and that consumers who call their operator to request better conditions for their contracts pay 5.8% less. Finally, we show that the excess price paid by unengaged consumers increases as they contract more sophisticated services, such as premium television content and additional mobile lines. Author Affiliation: (a) Departament d'Economia and BEAT, Universitat de Barcelona, Spain (b) Department of Statistics and Knowledge Management, Comisión Nacional de los Mercados y la Competencia, Spain * Corresponding author. Article History: Received 25 March 2022; Revised 25 December 2022; Accepted 5 January 2023 (footnote) The opinions and analysis that appear in this paper are responsibility of the authors only and do not necessarily represent those of the CNMC. Joan Calzada acknowledges financial support from the Spanish Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities (grant PID2021-128237OB-I00). Byline: Joan Calzada [calzada@ub.edu] (a,*), Begoña García-Mariñoso (b), David Suárez (b)

Keywords Privacy; Competition; Regulation; Eprivacy directive Highlights * How does privacy regulation affects the structure of online markets? * We empirically analyse the effects of the 2009 ePrivacy Directive in Europe on firm revenues; * Firms stayed largely unaffected, but we see some negative effects on large firms only; * Larger firms may offer more privacy than smaller rivals; * We provide a theoretical model where larger firms offer more privacy but are hit harder by privacy regulation; * Privacy regulation is not without costs to businesses, but it need not distort competition to the favour of larger firms. Abstract This paper investigates how privacy regulation affects the structure of online markets. We empirically analyse the effects of the 2009 ePrivacy Directive in Europe on firm revenues. Our results indicate that, if any, only large firms were weakly negatively affected by the implementation of the Directive. We also provide a simple theoretical model predicting an avenue how privacy regulation may predominantly influence the revenues and profits of larger firms, even if - as some of our evidence indicates - these larger firms may actually offer more privacy than smaller rivals. Our results suggest that while privacy regulation is not without costs to businesses, it need not distort competition to the favour of larger firms. Author Affiliation: (a) Department of Management and Production Engineering, Politecnico di Torino Italy (b) European Commission DG COMP - Chief Economist Team and Düsseldorf Institute for Competition Economics (DICE), Heinrich Heine University of Düsseldorf. Belgium * Corresponding author. Article History: Received 28 January 2021; Revised 4 April 2022; Accepted 10 June 2022 (footnote)[white star] We are grateful to the Editor and two anonymous referees for their valuable suggestions which greatly improved the paper. We would also like to thank Carlo Cambini, Grazia Cecere, Szabolcs Lorincz, Ulrich Laitenberger, and Mario Pagliero, as well as seminar participants at the 11th Paris Conference on Digital Economics, Bergen Competition Policy Conference 2019, X Workshop on Individual Behaviour and Economic Outcomes, 17th ZEW Conference on the Economics of Information and Communication Technologies, CRESSE Conference 2019, and 17th Media Economics Workshop in Braga for helpful comments and discussions. All remaining errors are ours. (footnote)1 The views expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and may not, under any circumstances, be regarded as representing an official position of the European Commission. Byline: Lorien Sabatino [lorien.sabatino@polito.it] (a), Geza Sapi [sapi@dice.uni-duesseldorf.de] (1,*,b)

Keywords Media; Selective exposure; Partisan news; Internet and social media; Echo chamber Highlights * Based on a sample of 4000 French internet users, our index of partisan selective exposure shows that on average, partisan exposure is low when social media are excluded. * The more people declare extreme (right- or left-wing) political views, the more they are over-exposed to like-minded content. * It also indicates that social media consumption increases selective exposure to partisan news. * While the youngest and the less educated appear to be less exposed to partisan content in the absence of social media, our results suggest that this is no longer the case when social media are included in the news diet. Abstract The development of online social media has raised concerns about how individuals are over-exposed to partisan news. However, social media are only a part of the daily media diet of an average consumer (; ). The aim of this paper is therefore to examine partisan news exposure with respect to the entire media diet. We develop a partisan selective exposure index that indicates the over-representation of partisan political opinions in individual daily news consumption. Our analysis of data from a survey of 4,000 people in France shows that on average, partisan exposure is low when social media are excluded. Our estimations also indicate that social media consumption increases selective exposure to partisan content. While the youngest and the less educated appear to be less exposed to partisan content in the absence of social media, our results suggest that this is no longer the case when social media are included in the news diet. Finally, we show that the more people declare extreme (right- or left-wing) political views, the more they are over-exposed to like-minded content. Author Affiliation: (a) La Rochelle University, CEREGE, France (b) University of Angers, GRANEM and Labex ICCA, France (c) La Rochelle University, CRHIA and Sorbonne Nouvelle University, IRCAV 1 1 This paper forms part of the PIL research project (Plurality of Online News, grant No. ANR-17-CE27-0010) funded by the French National Agency for Research, whose financial support is gratefully acknowledged. It has benefited from comments and suggestions from participants at the 2019 3EN Meeting, at the Louvain and Paris Online Digital Economics seminar, and at the 2021 AFSE conference. The authors also thank Blaise Boton for his research assistance. , France * Corresponding author. Article History: Received 22 July 2021; Revised 19 June 2022; Accepted 27 July 2022 (footnote)1 This paper forms part of the PIL research project (Plurality of Online News, grant No. ANR-17-CE27-0010) funded by the French National Agency for Research, whose financial support is gratefully acknowledged. It has benefited from comments and suggestions from participants at the 2019 3EN Meeting, at the Louvain and Paris Online Digital Economics seminar, and at the 2021 AFSE conference. The authors also thank Blaise Boton for his research assistance. Byline: Sylvain Dejean [sylvain.dejean@univ-lr.fr] (a,*), Marianne Lumeau (b), Stéphanie Peltier (c)

Keywords Platform competition; Exclusive distribution; Piracy; Quality; Movies; Copyright Highlights * The paper uses rich data on movie streaming services and a quasi-natural experiment in Brazil to explore causal effects around content market fragmentation. * It investigates the effects of cross-platform availability of titles on online piracy searches and the investment in average quality of titles. * Non-exclusive distribution is more effective in deterring online piracy than is single-homing content. * Non-exclusive distribution induces higher average investment in the quality of new domestic movie productions. * The paper discusses policy options in the light of these findings. Abstract Platforms often compete over non-price strategies such as the exclusive distribution of products. But these strategies are not always welfare-enhancing. Using rich data on audiovisuals distributed on platforms in Brazil, we find that non-exclusive distribution and availability of titles across platforms is more effective in deterring online piracy than in the single-homing case. Moreover, for the subset of domestic movies, it induces higher average investment in the quality of new titles upstream. We discuss options of copyright and competition policies in the light of these findings. Author Affiliation: World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) 34, chemin des Colombettes, Geneva CH-1211, Switzerland * Corresponding author. Article History: Received 28 January 2021; Revised 24 June 2022; Accepted 8 July 2022 (footnote)[white star] The views expressed are those of the authors, and do not necessarily reflect the views of the World Intellectual Property Organization or its member states. The authors gratefully acknowledge the generous data donation by justwatch.com. Moreover, they would like to thank Luis Aguiar, Paul Belleflamme, Carsten Fink, Kevin Hiller, Franziska Kaiser, Leonardo Madio, Dimitri Paolini, Bernd Riefler, Matthias Sahli and Rafael Ferraz Vazquez, as well as participants of the 5th Summer school for Data & Algorithms at KU Leuven for their feedback on previous versions of the paper. In addition, we are grateful for comments received by the editor and two anonymous reviewers. Byline: Alexander Cuntz [alexander.cuntz@wipo.int] (*,a), Kyle Bergquist [kyle.bergquist@wipo.int] (a)

Keywords Social media; Open innovation; Feedback; Product innovation Highlights * We use a unique data set combining survey data of German firms with information from firms' Facebook pages. * Firm's adoption of Facebook as well as feedback from users are positively and significantly correlated with the firm's probability to introduce a product innovation. * Our results withstand a large set of robustness checks including panel and IV analyses. * A content analysis of firm posts and user comments reveals that Facebook adoption is only correlated with product innovation if firms and users actively participate in a discussion. Abstract Social media open up new possibilities for firms to exploit information from various external sources. Does this information help firms to become more innovative? Combining firm-level survey data with information from firms' Facebook pages, we study the role that firms' and users' activities on Facebook play in the innovation process. We find that firms' adoption of a Facebook page as well as feedback from users are positively and significantly related to product innovations. Our results withstand a large set of robustness checks, including estimations that take potential endogeneity of firms' Facebook use as well as unobserved heterogeneity into account. Analyzing the content of firm posts and user comments reveals that Facebook adoption is only correlated with product innovations if firms and users actively participate in a discussion, especially when engagement is above-average and comes from both sides. Author Affiliation: (a) ZEW Mannheim, Digital Economy, P.O. Box 103443, D--68034 Mannheim, and University of Giessen, Germany (b) University of Zurich, Department of Business Administration, Plattenstrasse 14, Zurich CH--8032, Switzerland, and ZEW Mannheim, Germany * Corresponding author. Article History: Received 27 April 2021; Revised 30 June 2022; Accepted 18 July 2022 (footnote)[white star] Support from the 7th European Framework Program (Grant Agreement No. 320203) is gratefully acknowledged. We are grateful to Chris Forman, Ulrich Kaiser, Jenny Meyer, Peter Winker, and Michael Zhang for their valuable comments. We thank the participants of the CRE8TV workshops in Milan and Manchester, the SEEK Digital Economy Workshop in Turin, the research seminars at the Universities of Ulm, Giessen, Münster, Kassel, and Bochum, as well as the participants of the annual conferences at IIOC 2016 in Philadelphia, EARIE 2016 in Lisbon, and the VfS 2016 in Augsburg for their helpful comments. We thank Niklas Gösser and Florian Schoner for their outstanding research assistance, as well as Erin Goldfinch for proof reading the paper. An earlier version of this paper is available as a CRE8TV Project Deliverable DEL: 4.2.4-R titled 'Social Media as a Source of Creativity: Hype or a Serious Strategy?.' Byline: Irene Bertschek [irene.bertschek@zew.de] (*,a), Reinhold Kesler [reinhold.kesler@business.uzh.ch] (b)

Keywords Telework; COVID-19; ICT tools; Working environments; Digitalization; Non-routine task Highlights * In the spread of COVID-19, people have been requested to use telework. * This paper uses the unique panel survey on telework use in Japan from 2020 to 2021 (Okubo=NIRA Survey). * Educated, high ICT-skilled, younger, and female workers who engage in nonroutine tasks tend to use telework. * IT communication tools, digitalized offices, and flexible-hour working systems are positively correlated with telework use. Abstract In the spread of coronavirus disease (COVID-19), people have been requested to work from home with information and communication technology (ICT) tools, i.e. telework. This paper investigates which factors (infection of COVID-19, individual characteristics, task characteristics, and working environments) are associated with telework use in Japan. Using the unique panel survey on telework, our estimation finds that although telework use remains low in Japan, educated, high ICT-skilled, younger, and female workers who engage in less teamwork and less routine tasks tend to use telework. Working environments such as the richness of IT communication tools, digitalized offices, and flexible-hour working systems are all positively correlated with telework use. Author Affiliation: Faculty of Economics, Keio University, 2-15-45 Mita Minato Tokyo, 108-8345, Japan Article History: Received 19 October 2021; Revised 11 May 2022; Accepted 17 June 2022 Byline: Toshihiro Okubo [okubo@econ.keio.ac.jp]

Keywords Mobile telephony; Regulation; Market conduct Highlights * Mobile termination rates have a significant positive effect on mobile retail prices. * A decline in average MTR of 10% decreases average mobile retail price by 2.5%. * MNP has an insignificant effect on prices. * An outcome which could be due to poor implementation of MNP in these countries. * On average price elasticity of demand in these markets is -0.27. Abstract This paper examines the effect of regulatory policies on mobile retail prices. Using quarterly data for 8 African countries for the period 2010:Q4 to 2014:Q4 we estimate structural demand and supply equations. We find that mobile termination rates (MTR) have significant positive impact on mobile retail prices. A decline in average MTR of 10% decreases average mobile retail prices by 2.5%. On the other hand, mobile number portability (MNP) has an insignificant effect on price and subscriptions in selected African countries. This may be due to inadequate implementation of MNP and consecutively low demand for porting numbers. The average market conduct in mobile telecommunications industry for selected African countries can be approximated by Cournot Nash equilibrium, while price elasticity of demand is on average -0.27. Author Affiliation: (a) Department of Economics, Faculty of Social Science, University of Botswana, 4775 Notwane Road, Gaborone, Botswana (b) Research ICT Africa, Workshop 17, 17 Dock Road, V&A Water Front, Cape Town, South Africa Article History: Received 10 March 2021; Revised 27 November 2021; Accepted 16 December 2021 (footnote) Many thanks to Research ICT Africa and Stanley Mutinda for sharing data. I am grateful to Lukasz Grzybowski for many useful discussions, ideas and comments implemented in the paper. Many thanks to Todd Edler for sharing the stata routines for estimating potential bias. I also thank Lebogang Mateane, G. Charles-Cadogan for reading and commenting on the manuscript, and participants at the University of Cape Town Brown Bag seminars for comments, which improved the paper. Any errors, which may remain, are my own. Byline: Onkokame Mothobi [mthonk003@gmail.com] (a,b)

Keywords Ridesharing; Geography; Transportation Abstract Despite the popularity of ridesharing, there is limited empirical evidence on how ridesharing activities differ across regions with different levels of accessibility and the implication for consumers. In this paper, we study the market for rides across New York City neighborhoods. We construct a novel data set that contains massive API queries on route-specific estimates of pricing, wait time, and travel time of Uber, Lyft, and the public transit. After linking this data with actual trip records of taxis, Uber, and Lyft, we document a strong pattern that ridesharing has a larger market share relative to taxis in neighborhoods with lower accessibility, defined either in terms of geographic distance to Midtown Manhattan or 'economic distance' to job opportunities. Next, we estimate a discrete-choice model of demand for rides and interpret the geography of ridesharing through the lens of the model. We find that consumer surplus from ridesharing varies drastically across geography: passengers that are 5 to 15 miles (resp. more than 15 miles) from Midtown experience a 60% (resp. 19%) larger consumer surplus relative to passengers that are within 5 miles from Midtown. Over half of these gains comes from reduced wait time. Author Affiliation: (a) Department of Economics,320L Wilbur O. and Ann Powers Hall, Clemson, SC, 29634, USA (b) Olin Business School 1 Brookings Drive, Knight Hall 406St. Louis, MO 63130, USA * Corresponding author. Article History: Received 7 January 2021; Revised 29 June 2021; Accepted 25 July 2021 (footnote)[white star] Lam and Liu are co-first authors and Hui is the second author of the paper. The authors would like to thank Erik Brynjolfsson, Babur De los Santos, Dean Eckles, Chiara Farronato, Andrey Fradkin, Avi Goldfarb, Daniel Miller, Catherine Tucker, Joel Waldfogel, Patrick Warren for their invaluable comments and suggestions. We also thank conference and seminar participants at Stanford Workshop at Marketplace Innovation, Marketing Science Conference, Toulouse Conference on the Digital Economy, AEA, MIT, WashU, Clemson, and Erasmus University. This study is not sponsored by Uber, Lyft, or any other organizations. Byline: Chungsang Tom Lam [tomlam@clemson.edu] (a), Meng Liu [mengl@wustl.edu] (b), Xiang Hui [hui@wustl.edu] (*,b)

Keywords Zero price goods; navigation apps; digital maps; discrete choice experiment; consumer surplus; online privacy Highlights * Consumer welfare from free of charge navigation service is estimated. * Choice experiment approach is used for preference elicitation. * Mixed logit model is used for estimation of the underlying utility parameters. * Location-based services substantially increase the value of navigation. * Conditions for location sharing affect the valuation of navigation. * Privacy concerns affect the value of navigation with personalised location sharing. Abstract The number of active users of digital maps and navigation applications has exceeded a billion worldwide. As these apps are predominantly free of charge, their contribution to consumer well-being cannot be measured using common economic indicators, like GDP. The present study measures, in an economically consistent way, consumer surplus from a navigation service. The preferences for the navigation service and two optional location-based functionalities: traffic information and commercial information are elicited in a discrete choice experiment. In the experiment, respondents are confronted with a range of location-sharing arrangements set by a navigation provider of varying intrusiveness regarding privacy. Median consumer surplus from using satellite-only navigation without location-based functionalities is estimated at EUR 8.06 per month. Adding location-based services increases this gain by 36% to EUR 10.98, provided that data sharing is arranged on non-intrusive, user-centric terms. Both location-sharing conditions set by providers and privacy concerns of users affect the surplus size gained from using free navigation applications. Author Affiliation: (a) Joint Research Centre, European Commission, Seville, Spain (b) Faculty of Economics, University of Warsaw, Poland Article History: Received 10 March 2020; Revised 1 March 2021; Accepted 18 March 2021 (footnote)[white star] This research paper is based on the data collected for the Joint Research Centre under the 'European Location Interoperability Solutions for e-Government' (ELISE) Action of the ISA² Programme. The scientific output and views expressed in this research paper do not represent the official position of the European Commission but are solely those of the author. Byline: Maciej Sobolewski [maciej.sobolewski@ec.europa.eu] (a,b)

Keywords Remote access; Firm labour productivity; Panel data Highlights * We assess the relationship between remote electronic access and productivity in Portugal. * On average, remote access is negatively associated with productivity. * There is large heterogeneity across different types of firms. * A positive relationship between remote access and productivity is found in R&D firms. Abstract Whether or not the option to work remotely increases firm labour productivity is theoretically ambiguous. We use a rich and representative sample of Portuguese firms, and within-firm variation in the policy of remote electronic access -- a key prerequisite for remote work -- over the period 2011--2016, to empirically assess the relationship between remote access and firm labour productivity. Based on estimations of models with firm-fixed effects, we find a significantly negative association, on average, between remote access and productivity. However, we also find a substantial degree of heterogeneity across different categories of firms, where the association between remote access and productivity is significantly positive for firms that undertake R&D activities. Our findings suggest that the possibility of working remotely, as proxied by the possibility of remote access, is more likely to be harmful for productivity in non-exporting, small firms that do not do R&D, and that employ a workforce with a below-average skill level. Author Affiliation: (a) Department of Economics/NIPE, University of Minho, Campus de Gualtar, Braga 4710-057, Portugal (b) Department of Economics, University of Bergen, Norway * Corresponding author. Article History: Received 7 April 2020; Revised 19 January 2021; Accepted 3 March 2021 (footnote) We thank two anonymous referees for very helpful comments and suggestions. This paper is financed by National Funds of the FCT -- Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology within the project 'UID/ECO/03182/2019'. We thank Instituto Nacional de Estatística for allowing access to data from Sistema de Contas Integrado das Empresas and Inquérito à Utilização de Tecnologias da Informação e da Comunicação nas Empresas. We are also grateful for comments from participants at various conferences and seminars. (footnote)1 All authors have contributed to all parts of the process involved in completing the paper. Byline: Natália P. Monteiro [n.monteiro@eeg.uminho.pt] (a,1), Odd Rune Straume [o.r.straume@eeg.uminho.pt] (a,b,1,*), Marieta Valente [mvalente@eeg.uminho.pt] (a,1)

Keywords ICT; submarine cables; digital divide; Sub-Saharan Africa; infrastructure; connectivity Highlights * This paper analyses the consequences of improved international connectivity on ICT penetration in sub-Saharan Africa * International connectivity in sub-Saharan Africa has been spurred by the laying of broadband submarine cables by the end of the 2000s * The specific contribution of the SEACOM/EASSy cables to Internet uptake in Eastern and Southern Africa is studied within a DID framework * These specific cables rollout has yielded a 3-5 percentage-point increase in internet penetration rates in this region compared to the rest of the continent. Abstract In recent decades, international connectivity has improved significantly with the worldwide deployment of some 400 fiber submarine cables (SMCs), transmitting more than 99% of international telecommunications. If sub-Saharan African (SSA) has long remained excluded from this interconnection process, the maritime infrastructure network has recently densified and spurred an African connectivity catch-up. This paper estimates the impact of SMC deployment on the digital divide in a sample of 45 SSA countries covering the period of 1990--2014. Difference in differences (DID) estimations are conducted and highlight the particular contribution of SEACOM and EASSy cables, laid in 2009--2010, to Internet penetration in Eastern and Southern Africa. According to DID estimates, the rollout of these SMCs has yielded a 3--5 percentage point increase in Internet penetration rates in this region compared to the rest of SSA. This is a remarkable advancement, since this variation corresponds approximately to the level of Internet penetration in the subcontinent prior to their arrival. Author Affiliation: Research Officer, Fondation pour les études et recherches sur le développement international, 63 boulevard François Mitterrand, Clermont-Ferrand, France. Article History: Received 29 July 2019; Revised 23 November 2020; Accepted 24 November 2020 Byline: Joël Cariolle [joel.cariolle@ferdi.fr]

Keywords Advertising; Ad quality; Regulation; TV; Two-sided markets highlights * I model a free-to-air TV platform selling advertising slots to firms. * I examine the effects of advertising caps on advertising quality and social welfare. * An advertising cap may increase or reduce the average ad quality. * A cap may result in lower social welfare than leaving advertising airtime unregulated. Abstract This paper investigates how regulations that limit advertising airtime may affect advertising quality and social welfare. I show, first, conditions under which an advertising cap may reduce or improve the average quality of advertising broadcast on a free-to-air TV platform. Second, an advertising cap may reduce TV platform's and firms' profits, while the net effect on viewers' welfare is ambiguous because the ad quality may decrease as a result of a regulatory cap offsetting the direct gain from watching fewer ads. The results suggest that a regulator that is trying to increase social welfare via regulation of the volume of advertising on TV should take the effect of advertising quality into consideration. Implementing an advertising cap without regard to ad quality may result in lower social welfare than leaving advertising airtime unregulated. Author Affiliation: (a) London School of Economics and Political Science, London, United Kingdom (b) RBB Economics, London, United Kingdom Article History: Received 13 January 2020; Revised 13 June 2020; Accepted 29 September 2020 (footnote)[white star] I am grateful to Vasco Santos for extensive comments, suggestions and discussions on matters related to this paper. I also wish to thank Charles Xie, David de Meza, Heski Bar-Isaac, Patrick Rey, Robin Lee, Shelly Rodgers, the Editor Luis Aguiar, two anonymous referees and seminar participants at ParisTech and Ofcom for useful comments on earlier versions of this paper. This paper is based on previous research work I carried out at Nova School of Business and Economics, and at NYU -- Stern School of Business with financial support from Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia under the scholarship BD/47421/2008 which is gratefully acknowledged. The analyses, opinions and findings in this paper represent the views of the author, and should not be interpreted as an official position of the institutions of affiliation. All errors are my responsibility. Byline: David Henriques [dthenriques@gmail.com] (a,b)

To link to full-text access for this article, visit this link: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.infoecopol.2016.10.003 Byline: Wing Man Wynne Lam Abstract: * This paper studies investments in cybersecurity, where both the software provider and the software users can invest in security. * Since software products are never free of bugs, I consider a provider that can undertake attack-prevention and damage-control investments. * I show that when the provider is fully liable for all damages, it underinvests in attack prevention and overinvests in damage control. * This is akin to a software provider releasing vulnerable alpha versions of their products before the more secure beta versions. * The joint use of an optimal standard and partial liability can restore investment efficiency. Author Affiliation: University of Liege (ULg), HEC Management School, Liege Competition and Innovation Institute (LCII), Belgium Article History: Received 1 November 2015; Revised 5 October 2016; Accepted 17 October 2016 Article Note: (footnote) [star] I thank the editor, Christiaan Hogendorn, and two anonymous referees for comments that significantly improved the paper. I thank Paul Belleflamme, Giacomo Calzolari, Jacques Cremer, Vincenzo Denicolo, Axel Gautier, Domenico Menicucci, Paul Seabright, and the participants at the LCII and CORE 2015 Digital Economy Workshop, the WEIS 2015 Conference, and the EALE 2015 Conference, the George Washington University 2016 Cybersecurity Workshop, as well as those at seminars at Telecom ParisTech and Saint-Louis University Brussels for their valuable comments. I also acknowledge the support of Toulouse School of Economics and University of Bologna at earlier stages of this research. All opinions expressed are strictly my own.

To link to full-text access for this article, visit this link: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.infoecopol.2016.07.001 Byline: Zhongmin Wang, Minbo Xu Abstract: * Penny auctions are seen as an adaptation of the famous dollar auction. * We present evidence that penny auctions cannot sustain profits in the long run. * Penny auctions profit from a revolving door of new bidders. * Penny auctions lose money to experienced bidders as a group. * Bidder earning is positively related to bidders' strategic sophistication. Author Affiliation: (a) Resources for the Future, 1616 P St. NW, Washington, DC 20036, USA (b) Business School, Beijing Normal University, No.19 Xinjiekouwai St., Beijing 100875, China Article History: Received 24 June 2015; Revised 16 June 2016; Accepted 4 July 2016 Article Note: (footnote) [star] A previous version of the paper was circulated under the title 'Learning and Strategic Sophistication in Games: Evidence from Online Penny Auctions.' We are grateful to Christoph Bauner, Christian Rojas, and especially John Conlon, Jim Dana, and Ian Gale for their comments and suggestions that improved the paper. We thank seminar participants at College of William & Mary, University of Mississippi, University of Wisconsin Whitewater, Beijing Normal University, the 10th International Industrial Organization Conference, the 2nd Georgetown Center for Economic Reserach Conference, the 2013 FTC microeconomics conference, and the 2014 Workshop on Behavioral Economics and Industrial Organization at Budapest for helpful discussions. Chengyan Gu and Xi Shen provided excellent research assistance. Any errors are ours only.

To link to full-text access for this article, visit this link: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.infoecopol.2016.01.002 Byline: Michael R. Baye, Babur De los Santos, Matthijs R. Wildenbeest Abstract: * Organic search results do not include information about seller characteristics. * A novel measure of the prominence of a retailer's name is proposed. * Revealed preference theory shows this measure summarizes retailer attributes. * Name prominence is as important as screen position in predicting organic clicks. Author Affiliation: (a) Indiana University, United States (b) Clemson University, Department of Economics, 238 Sirrine Hall, Clemson, SC 29634, USA Article History: Received 19 October 2015; Revised 8 January 2016; Accepted 11 January 2016 Article Note: (footnote) [star] We thank Ginger Jin, Mike Mazzeo, Matt Selove, Song Yao, Jidong Zhou, and seminar participants at the Federal Trade Commission, New York University, Chapman University, and Indiana University for valuable comments on preliminary versions of this paper. We also thank Susan Kayser, Joowon Kim, and Zachary Mays for research assistance. Funding for the data and research assistance related to this research was made possible by a grant from Google to Indiana University. The views expressed in this paper are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of Indiana University or Google.

To link to full-text access for this article, visit this link: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.infoecopol.2015.07.005 Byline: Tim Paul Thomes Abstract: * The paper studies two-sided competition for gamers and publishers between video game platforms. * Video game platforms may invest into in-house games before entering competition. * If gamers singlehome, such investments transform the game into a prisoner's dilemma. * This no longer holds with multihoming on both sides of the market. * In-house publishing always enhances gamer surplus and social welfare. Article Note: (footnote) [star] I am very grateful to the editor, the guest editor and two anonymous referees for their very helpful comments and suggestions that greatly improved the paper. I am especially indebted to Markus Reisinger for invaluable suggestions. I also thank Florian Baumann, Jacques Cremer, Tobias Wenzel and workshop participants in Dusseldorf.

Keywords Algorithmic curation; Diversity; News quality; Political knowledge; Social media; Voting Highlights * News algorithms affect the amount of substantive political news on Facebook. * The higher number of political news items on Facebook increases ideological concentration. * Reduction of ideological concentration operates through the 'Law of Large Numbers' and a higher representation of niche ideologies. Abstract Facebook has been criticized for exposing its users to low-quality and harmful information, including fake news, hate speech, and politically one-sided content. In December 2013 and again in August 2014, the platform updated its news feed algorithm to increase user exposure to quality content of news publishers, while curbing the proliferation of non-informative posts. This paper uses a sample of German newspapers to investigate the conjecture that these modifications raised the incentives to publish quality news stories on the platform, focusing on the number and diversity of news story posts about substantive political issues. Using the newspapers' print editions as a counterfactual, our results indicate an increase in the amount of substantive political news on Facebook by approximately 30%. This expansion occurred in a politically balanced way, except that the outlets disproportionately increased their Facebook coverage of the formerly underrepresented Linke (Left Party). Consequently, the within-outlet concentration of political viewpoints decreased by about one half of the standard deviation of our concentration indices. Author Affiliation: (a) Jönköping International Business School, Sweden (b) Stockholm University, Sweden * Corresponding author. Article History: Received 6 June 2022; Revised 9 January 2023; Accepted 20 January 2023 (footnote) We thank Anna Kerkhof, Greg Martin, Bei Qin, José Reis, Andrey Simonov, Daniel Stone, David Strömberg, Maiting Zhuang, and seminar participants in Hohenheim, Jönköping, and Perth for helpful comments and suggestions. We gratefully acknowledge funding by Stiftelsen Inger, Arne och Astrid Oscarssons Donationsfond. Corresponding author: Ferenc Szucs, Stockholm University, Department of Economics, 106 91 Stockholm, Sweden. Email: ferenc.szucs@ne.su.se. Byline: Marcel Garz (a), Ferenc Szucs [ferenc.szucs@su.se] (b,*)

Byline: Yu-Hsin Liu (a), Jeffrey Prince [jeffprin@indiana.edu] (a,*), Scott Wallsten (b) Highlights * First paper to measure relative willingness-to-pay for broadband internet latency, upload and download bandwidth, and data caps. * Willingness-to-pay for bandwidth and data caps is highly concave, with the exception of added value for unlimited data. * The FCC's Phase II auction for broadband provision subsidies penalizes latency much more than consumer willingness-to-pay would suggest. * Excluding latency from a willingness-to-pay survey for broadband can result in overvaluation of its speed counterpart, bandwidth. * Willingness-to-pay surveys similar to the one in this paper can help guide policy and private investment concerning characteristics of products and services. Abstract We measure households' willingness-to-pay for changes in key home broadband Internet connection features using data from two nationally administered, discrete choice surveys. Both surveys include price, data caps, and download and upload bandwidth, but only one includes latency. Together, these surveys allow us to measure tradeoffs between bandwidth and other connectivity features such as price and data caps, and perhaps most notably, provide the only empirical evidence to date of tradeoffs between bandwidth and latency. We find that households' valuation of bandwidth is highly concave, with relatively little added value beyond 100 Mbps. For example, households are willing to pay about $2.34 per Mbps ($14 total) monthly to increase bandwidth from 4 Mbps to 10 Mbps, $1.57 per Mbps ($24) to increase from 10 to 25 Mbps, and only $0.02 per Mbps ($19) for an increase from 100 Mbps to 1000 Mbps. We also find households willing to pay about $8.66 per month to reduce latency from levels obtained with satellite Internet service to levels more common to wired service. Household valuation of increased data caps is also concave as caps increase from 300 GB to 1000 GB, although consumers place a significant premium on unlimited service. Our findings provide the first relative valuation of bandwidth and latency and suggest that current U.S. policy may be over-penalizing latency relative to reductions in bandwidth and data caps. For example, we find that in its CAF Phase II Auction, the FCC is imposing a bidding penalty for latency that is about five times higher than what our WTP estimates suggest it should be relative to bandwidth offered. Author Affiliation: (a) Indiana University, Department of Business Economics and Public Policy, Kelley School of Business, USA (b) Technology Policy Institute, USA * Corresponding author. Article History: Received 15 September 2017; Revised 20 April 2018; Accepted 16 July 2018 (footnote)[white star] We thank several focus groups for their time and insight and ResearchNow for assistance in administering the surveys. We are responsible for all errors.

Byline: Jens Prufer [j.prufer@uvt.nl] Keywords Trust; Private ordering; Associations; Certification; Privacy Highlights * This paper studies the trust issue created by data security and privacy concerns of users in cloud computing, which is the key obstacle to fully exploit the huge economic potential of this set of new technologies. * A model is constructed that designs a mechanism which sets the incentives of all involved players right: cloud service providers, certifiers, a nonprofit organization called cloud association, and users. * The paper is the first in economics to model a two-layered-certification scheme, where a monitor (certifier) is monitored herself (by the cloud association). * It is shown under which circumstances the prosed mechanism constitutes an equilibrium and can, hence, solve the trust issues in cloud computing. * The theoretical proposed mechanism is compared with an existing mechanism. Suggestions for how to improve the existing one are made. Abstract Cloud computing technologies can increase innovation and economic growth considerably. Because of privacy concerns, however, many users underutilize cloud technologies. This paper designs an institution attenuating the problem: a two-layered certification scheme built around a private, nonprofit organization called cloud association. This association is governed by representatives of both users and cloud service providers and sources auditing and certification of providers out to independent for-profit certifiers. It is shown how this institution incentivizes providers to produce high data security, and users with strong privacy preferences to trust them and pay a premium for their services. Author Affiliation: Department of Economics, CentER, TILEC, Tilburg University, P.O. Box 90153, LE Tilburg, 5000, The Netherlands Article History: Received 27 March 2017; Revised 29 October 2018; Accepted 30 October 2018 (footnote)[white star] I am grateful to several seminar audiences at Tilburg University, at the A4Cloud General Meeting in Tilburg, the CPB in Den Haag, the International Society for New Institutional Economics at Duke University, and especially to Daniele Catteddu, Sebastian Dengler, Shivaram Devarakonda, Joeri van Hugten, Eleni Kosta, Ronald Leenes, Maartje Niezen, Erin O'Hara O'Connor, Bastiaan Overvest, and Patricia Prufer who provided valuable feedback on an earlier draft of this paper. The research leading to these results has received funding from the European Union Seventh Framework Programme (FP7/2007-2013) under grant agreement no: 317550 (A4Cloud). All errors are my own.

To access, purchase, authenticate, or subscribe to the full-text of this article, please visit this link: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.infoecopol.2018.01.002 Byline: Mehmet Pinar [mehmet.pinar@edgehill.ac.uk] (a,*), Engin Volkan (b) Keywords Capital flows; Information flows; Lucas Paradox; Institutional quality; Telecommunications Highlights * Empirical role of information flows in explaining capital flows is examined. * Countries with better institutions and high information flows receive more capital. * Information flows provide a partial explanation to the Lucas Paradox. * Countries with better institutional quality have higher levels of information flow. * Indirect effect of institutions on capital flows is as large as its direct effect. Abstract We examine the empirical role of information flows and institutional quality in explaining the capital flows per capita across countries, and their role in explaining the so-called Lucas paradox -low levels of capital flows to poor countries. The findings of this paper suggest that countries with better institutions and high information flows receive high capital flows, and information flows also provides a partial explanation to the Lucas Paradox. The latter result is significant even after controlling for institutional quality, financial openness and human capital differences across countries, and using instrumental variable for information flows. This paper also examines the indirect effects of institutional quality on capital flows per capita through its impact on information flows and finds that countries with better institutional quality have higher levels of information flow. Accounting this indirect effect is economically important and papers that do not account for this indirect effect of institutions on capital flows per capita would underestimate the effect of institutions on capital flows per capita. Findings of this paper suggest that relatively poorer countries should improve their institutional quality and increase their access to worldwide information and promote investments in communications infrastructure to attract long-term capital flows. Author Affiliation: (a) Business School, Edge Hill University, St Helens Road, Ormskirk, Lancashire L39 4QP, United Kingdom (b) Marmara University, Acibadem, Kadikoy, 34660, Istanbul * Corresponding author. Article History: Received 5 September 2017; Revised 4 January 2018; Accepted 19 January 2018

To access, purchase, authenticate, or subscribe to the full-text of this article, please visit this link: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.infoecopol.2018.04.001 Byline: Sena Kimm Gnangnon (a,*), Jean-Francois Brun [j-francois.brun@uca.fr] (b) Keywords Internet distance; Non-resource tax revenue Highlights * The paper examines the implications for a country's non-resource tax revenue of reducing the gap between its Internet usage intensity and the world's average Internet usage intensity. * The empirical analysis has been carried out by relying on a sample of 164 countries (including both developed and developing countries) over the period 1995--2013. * Results indicate that reduction of this gap influences positively country's non-resource tax revenue. * However, the magnitude and statistical significance of this positive impact of the reduction in this gap on non-resource tax revenue varies across sub-samples. * In particular, poorest countries appear to be the most important beneficiaries of the reduction of this gap on non-resource revenue. Abstract This paper contributes to the existing literature on the macroeconomic impact of Internet development by investigating how, for a given country, the reduction of the gap between its intensity of Internet usage and the world average Internet usage intensity influences its public revenue mobilization. The analysis covers 164 countries (including both developed and developing countries) for the period 1995--2013, and uses non-resource tax revenue as the measure of public revenue. The analysis was undertaken for the full sample as well as for several sub-samples, using the Generalized Methods of Moments (GMM) approach. The empirical results for the full sample suggest that when a country reduces the aforementioned gap, it experiences, over the short to medium term, a rise in non-resource tax revenue. The results also show that low-income countries (LICs) obtain the biggest positive impact by reducing this gap. Author Affiliation: (a) World Trade Organization, Rue de Lausanne 154, CH-1211 Geneva 21, Switzerland (b) CNRS, CERDI, Universite Clermont Auvergne, 65 Boulevard F. Mitterrand, Boite Postale 320, F-63000 Clermont-Ferrand, France * Corresponding author. Article History: Received 11 June 2017; Revised 25 February 2018; Accepted 5 April 2018

To link to full-text access for this article, visit this link: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.infoecopol.2014.04.003 Byline: Rosa-Branca Esteves Abstract: acents The paper models BBPD with retention offers, in the form of a discount. acents Firms offer a retention discount as an attempt to reduce switching. acents BBPD is used among the firm's old passive/active customers and the rival's customers. acents BBPD with retention might not destroy the dominance of the bigger firm as would happen with BBPD alone. acents In comparison to BBPD alone, BBPD with retention harms profits and benefits consumers and welfare. Article History: Received 15 March 2013; Revised 28 March 2014; Accepted 25 April 2014 Article Note: (footnote) [star] An early version of this paper was prepared to the Ofcom Workshop on the Economics of Switching Costs, January 2010. I thank the workshop participants especially Geoffrey Myers and Khaled Diaw. Thanks for comments on an early version of this paper are also due to Patrick Rey, Rune Stenbacka and participants of the 2010 EARIE Conference. This work was financed by FEDER funds through the Operational Programme for Competitiveness Factors - COMPETE and National Funds through FCT - Foundation for Science and Technology under the projects PTDC/EGE-ECO/108784/2008 and PTDC/EGE-ECO/111558/2009.

To link to full-text access for this article, visit this link: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.infoecopol.2013.11.001 Byline: Roman Inderst, Martin Peitz Abstract: acents The article studies incentives to invest in an up-graded network. acents Incremental value over the legacy network is uncertain. acents The article evaluates various access price policies under uncertainty. acents The access price structure turns out to be critical for the risk profile of the firms. acents Implications of the time structure of access payments are derived. Article History: Received 27 April 2013; Revised 16 October 2013; Accepted 8 November 2013 Article Note: (footnote) [star] This paper is part of a large project for the German Ministry of Economics. A German-language and more-policy-oriented version of this research can be found in Inderst et al. (2012), part of which draws heavily on the present paper. Financial support from the German Ministry of Economics is gratefully acknowledged. We received helpful comments by an anonymous reviewer.

To access, purchase, authenticate, or subscribe to the full-text of this article, please visit this link: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.infoecopol.2017.06.005 Byline: Mohammad Mafizur Rahman [mafiz.rahman@usq.edu.au] (a), Shamsul Arifeen Khan Mamun [sakmamun@aiub.edu] (b) Keywords China; Cobb--Douglas production function; Generalised method of moments; Elasticity; Panel data Highlights * This paper examines the effects of access to telephone infrastructure on the Chinese agriculture based on panel data. * It has used dynamic Cobb--Douglas aggregate production function and generalised method of moments (GMM) estimation technique. * Major findings are: the estimated elasticity of agricultural output with respect to teledensity is positive and statistically significant both in short-run and long-run, and in the long-run, the size of the effect is much larger. * The implication is that the investment in communication infrastructure in China and the less-developed countries is a worthy policy decision. Abstract This paper examines the effect of farmers' access to communication technologies (CTs) on farmers' agricultural output at the aggregate level in the People's Republic of China (P.R. China) based on panel data. The paper uses a dynamic Cobb--Douglas aggregate production function and the generalised method of moments (GMM) as estimation techniques to estimate the parameters of interests. The research findings are: the estimated effects (measured by elasticity) of teledensity on the provincial level agricultural output have been positive and statistically significant both in the short and long runs. In the long-run, the size of the effect is substantial: from 0.94 to 1.06. This implies that the agriculture sector of the P. R. China has some potentials to derive benefit from the use of CTs like telephone. Hence, the Chinese government should consider policy support to expand communication infrastructure for the farmers. Author Affiliation: (a) School of Commerce, University of Southern Queensland, Australia (b) Department of Economics, American International University, Bangladesh * Corresponding author. Article History: Received 16 June 2016; Revised 10 May 2017; Accepted 6 June 2017

To access, purchase, authenticate, or subscribe to the full-text of this article, please visit this link: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.infoecopol.2017.06.007 Byline: Rosa-Branca Esteves [rbranca@eeg.uminho.pt] (*,a,b), Sofia Cerqueira (a) Keywords Competitive price discrimination; Customer recognition; Informative advertising; Retargeting strategies; Welfare Highlights * This paper constitutes a first assessment of the profit and consumer welfare effects of BBPD in markets with imperfectly informed consumers due to the firms advertising decisions. * Firms advertise less when price discrimination is permitted. * In comparison to no-discrimination, BBPD in our setting boosts industry profits and harm consumers. This finding challenges the 'traditional' view that such pricing practices in oligopoly markets often intensify competition and potentially benefit consumers. * In comparison to the case with fully informed consumers, BBPD can increase industry profits at the expense of consumer welfare as long as advertising costs are not too low. * For competition policy our analysis suggests that it is important to taking into account different forms of market competition when evaluating the profit and consumer welfare effects of BBPD. Abstract This paper is a first look at the dynamic effects of behavior-based price discrimination in a horizontally differentiation product market, where firms need to invest in advertising to generate awareness. When a firm is able to recognize customers with different purchasing histories, it may send them targeted advertisements with different prices. We show that in comparison to no discrimination, firms reduce their advertising efforts, charge higher first period prices and lower second period prices. As a result of that in contrast to the profit and consumer welfare results obtained under full informed consumers, we show that behavior-based price discrimination boosts industry profits at the expense of consumer welfare. Author Affiliation: (a) Universidade do Minho and NIPE, Portugal (b) Universidade do Minho, Portugal * Corresponding author at: School of Economics and Management, 4710 Braga, Braga, Portugal. Article History: Received 7 January 2015; Revised 16 June 2017; Accepted 19 June 2017 (footnote)[white star] This work was carried out within the funding with COMPETE reference n* PTDC/IIM-ECO/2280/2014, with the FCT/MEC's (FundaAaAaAeAoAaAaAeALo para a CiAaAaAeAa*ncia e a Tecnologia, I.P.) financial support t national funding and by the ERDF through the Operational Programme on 'Competitiveness and Internationalization -- COMPETE 2020 under the PT2020 Partnership Agreement. Any errors are our own responsbility.

To access, purchase, authenticate, or subscribe to the full-text of this article, please visit this link: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.infoecopol.2017.04.004 Byline: Andre Boik [aboik@ucdavis.edu] (*,1) Keywords Universal service; Entry subsidies; Broadband; Telecommunications Abstract Universal service is a policy objective that all individuals or households have access to some service. Subsidy policies to accomplish universal service may arise when private provision is non-universal. In the context of rural high speed wired broadband subsidies, this paper examines novel household-level cable and satellite broadband subscription data from North Carolina to examine household adoption and substitution patterns across broadband types to evaluate how many currently unserved regions warrant an entry subsidy. This paper has three main findings: (i) fewer than 43% of households adopt high speed broadband in areas currently served by a single broadband provider, (ii) there exists evidence of a significant elasticity of substitution between high speed wired broadband and the lower speed options of satellite broadband and DSL, and (iii) a generous upper bound on the number of regions that warrant an entry subsidy is 64%. These results suggest a policy of universal high speed wired broadband service in North Carolina would be unlikely to achieve universal adoption, would connect many households already with internet access and who would not substitute, and in many regions would be prohibitively costly even assuming very generous estimates of the consumer surplus generated. From the perspective of social welfare, to justify connecting the 5% least dense areas of North Carolina would require each adopting household value high speed wired broadband access at more than $1519 per month. Author Affiliation: Department of Economics, University of California, One Shields Avenue, Davis CA, 95616, USA * Corresponding author. Article History: Received 3 February 2016; Revised 17 January 2017; Accepted 21 April 2017 (footnote)1 I would like to thank seminar participants at the Federal Communications Commission, Shane Greenstein, Laura Grigolon, Han Hong, Herman Li, Erich Muehlegger, Jeff Prince, Glen Weyl, and Brad Wimmer for very helpful comments and especially Jennifer A. Manner at EchoStar Corporation for several extensive discussions. I would also like to thank Daniel Covrig, Sinath Neang, Jean Stratford, and Thinh Tran for excellent research assistance. I gratefully acknowledge financial support from the NET Institute (www.NETinst.org) and the Institute for Social Sciences at UC Davis.

To access, purchase, authenticate, or subscribe to the full-text of this article, please visit this link: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.infoecopol.2017.02.001 Byline: John W. Mayo [mayoj@georgetown.edu] (*), Olga Ukhaneva [oru@georgetown.edu] JEL classification L96; D01 Highlights * The paper highlights the emergence of VoIP and wireless services as new means for international communications for consumers. * We develop a model that incorporates these additional means of telecommunications and determines the key drivers of demand for international calling. * The results suggest that consumers are most sensitive to mobile and VoIP telephone prices. * The deployment of broadband has replaced the deployment of fixed telephone lines as a key enabling infrastructure for international calling. Abstract The means by which consumers communicate internationally have changed dramatically in recent years. The emergence of wireless international calling as well as VoIP have created substantial new communications pathways and vehicles for consumers. This paper extends the focus of traditional international demand studies to incorporate these new pathways for international communications. It draws upon a modern database that incorporates both mobile and VoIP calling made over the 2009--2012 period between 25 countries around the world. Among other things, it finds that modern consumers of international calling are most sensitive to mobile and VoIP telephone prices and that the deployment of broadband has replaced the deployment of fixed telephone lines as a key enabling infrastructure for international calling. The results suggest that future studies of international communications should certainly incorporate these features. Author Affiliation: Georgetown University, Rafik B. Hariri Building 37th and O Streets, NW Washington, DC 20057, United States * Corresponding author. Article History: Received 12 July 2016; Revised 28 November 2016; Accepted 3 February 2017

To link to full-text access for this article, visit this link: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.infoecopol.2011.07.001 Byline: Stefano Comino (a), Fabio M. Manenti (b) Keywords: Open source software; Open source business models; Embedded software; Dual licensing; Versioning Abstract: a* In this paper we study the profitability of a versioning strategy called dual licensing. a* Dual licensing is profitable when the feedbacks of the OS community are valuable enough. a* Our paper shows the central role played of the licensing terms of the software. Author Affiliation: (a) Dipartimento di Scienze Economiche e Statistiche, Universita di Udine, Via Tomadini 30/A, 33100 Udine, Italy (b) Dipartimento di Scienze Economiche 'M. Fanno', Universita di Padova, Via del Santo 33, 35123 Padova, Italy Article History: Received 26 April 2010; Revised 16 June 2011; Accepted 5 July 2011 Article Note: (footnote) [star] Much of this work has been conducted while the authors were visiting the School of Information of the University of California at Berkeley. We are extremely grateful to Hal Varian for his hospitality. Financial support from 'Progetto di Ateneo' - Padova, 2005-2007. Paper presented at the 2nd FLOSS international workshop on Free/Libre open source software - Rennes 2008, at the 3rd annual conference of the EPIP association - Bern, 2008, and at the 36th annual conference of the EARIE - Ljubljana, 2009. The authors are grateful to Mark Schankerman, Laura Vici, Marcus Wagner and Federico Boffa for helpful suggestions and comments on earlier versions of the paper. A special thank to two anonymous referees and to the Editor of Information Economics and Policy for their insightful comments.

Keywords Information technology; Manufacturing; Firm-level; Endogeneity; Control function Highlights * We assess the effects of IT as a production input in Indian manufacturing firms. * These effects are estimated using a recently developed semi-parametric estimator for 1998--2016. * IT as a production input contributes significantly to firm's output. * Output elasticities of IT vary significantly by time-period and industry. * IT elasticities in high- and low-technology sectors appear to be converging. Abstract India has risen to prominence as a global supplier of information technology (IT). However, the extent to which IT benefits Indian manufacturing is less well known. We assess the effects of IT capital on firm's growth from 1998 to 2016. We make two significant contributions: (i) we make comparisons between different periods, high-IT intensive and low-IT intensive sectors and 14 manufacturing industries at a disaggregated-level, (ii) to overcome the problems of simultaneity in production function estimation, we employ a recently developed semi-parametric technique. Our findings indicate that (i) IT as a production input contributes significantly to firm's output, yet the estimated effects vary significantly by time-period and industry, (ii) the impact of IT is maximum between 2000 and 2009, and then begins to weaken between 2010 and 2016, (iii) IT elasticities in high- and low-technology sectors appear to be converging, particularly between 2010 and 2016. Author Affiliation: (a) Indian Institute of Management Rohtak, India (b) Indian Institute of Management Lucknow, India * Corresponding author. Article History: Received 10 November 2021; Revised 19 April 2022; Accepted 17 June 2022 (footnote) The authors thank the editor of this journal and two anonymous referees for their useful comments and helpful suggestions on the previous versions of this paper. Any errors or omissions are solely the authors'. Byline: Rupika Khanna [rupika.khanna@iimrohtak.ac.in] (a,*), Chandan Sharma (b)

Keywords Price targeting; Privacy; Competition Highlights * Evaluates the use of customer data in a Hotelling market. * Derives new comparative statics with respect to the precision of information * Firms benefit if their rivals have access to more information, while consumers (as a whole) lose. * Suggests that information sharing by firms is detrimental to consumers * Abuse of dominance based on data may be limited. Abstract This paper studies third-degree price discrimination in a classical model of price competition with differentiated products. Firms charge different prices to different consumers, based on their estimate of their price sensitivity. If the market is fully covered and information is symmetric, more accurate information has a pure redistributive effect, leading to higher profits but lower consumer welfare. If the market is not covered, information always benefit firms but the welfare effects are ambiguous. If information is asymmetric, firms benefit from more information, but less so than in the symmetric case, and total welfare depends on the extent of this asymmetry. I conclude that firms have strong incentives to share information about consumer tastes. Author Affiliation: Department of Economics, University of Vienna and CESifo Austria Article History: Received 14 June 2021; Revised 17 February 2022; Accepted 9 June 2022 (footnote)1 Many thanks to Eeva Mauring for detailed comments on an earlier draft. Financial support from the FWF Project: FWF project Information Acquisition and Disclosure in Markets (FWF I03487) Byline: Daniel Garcia [daniel.garcia@univie.ac.at] (1)

Keywords Competing ecosystems; Foreclosure; Innovation; Vertical mergers Highlights * We revisit the classical arguments related to control changes arising from a vertical merger in the context of digital markets. * We argue that in ecosystem-markets where innovation plays a public good role, the traditional assessment of the competitive effects of vertical mergers needs to be amended. * Mergers within open ecosystems are less of a concern for consumer surplus and innovation incentives. * New implications for the assessment of vertical mergers in the digital industry are discussed. Abstract We study the competitive effects of a vertical merger in a digital industry where an integrated incumbent (closed ecosystem) competes with an open ecosystem formed by an upstream supplier (ecosystem gatekeeper) and two downstream retailers selling differentiated products. Absent innovation, the incumbent sells a superior product compared to the rivals' ones. Yet, the gatekeeper of the open ecosystem can fill up this gap by engaging in product innovation. We investigate the impact of vertical integration on the gatekeeper's incentives to foreclose its non-integrated downstream unit and innovate its ecosystem to compete head-to-head with the incumbent. The vertically integrated gatekeeper raises the costs of the unintegrated competitor to relax intra-ecosystem competition but does not fully foreclose it as that would cause fiercer inter-ecosystem competition. Moreover, vertical integration enhances innovation within the open ecosystem, enabling its participants to catch up with the incumbent. Overall, vertical integration may benefit consumers even when it softens intra-ecosystem competition. Author Affiliation: (a) Toulouse School of Economics, France (b) University of Bergamo, Italy (c) Compass Lexecon, United States (d) CSEF, Italy (e) University of Passau, Germany * Corresponding author. Article History: Received 9 September 2021; Revised 14 April 2022; Accepted 8 June 2022 (footnote)[white star] We would like to thank Daniele Condorelli, Miguel De la Mano, Guillaume Duquesne, Dan O'Brien, Frederic Palomino and two anonymous referees for useful comments and suggestions. We acknowledge financial support from NVidia. The views expressed in this paper are the sole responsibility of the authors and cannot be attributed to Compass Lexecon or its clients. Byline: Michele Bisceglia [michele.bisceglia@tse-fr.eu] (a,b), Jorge Padilla [jpadilla@compasslexecon.com] (c), Salvatore Piccolo [salvatore.piccolo@unibg.it] (*,b,c,d), Shiva Shekhar [shiva.shekhar@uni-passau.de] (c,e)

Keywords Internet; Civic engagement; Protests; Occupy movement Highlights * We use data on events related to the Occupy movement to understand how internet availability fosters political mobilization. * Linear estimates show that higher broadband penetration increases the probability of observing protests in a given location. * Results remain consistent under different specifications for the geographical unit of a protest. Abstract This paper investigates the influence of broadband internet availability in the occurrence of events of civil unrest. Using collected data on 2011's Occupy Movement in the U.S., we find that each new Internet Service Provider (which is associated to an increase in broadband penetration) accounts for an increase between 1 and 3 p.p. in the probability of observing protests in a given location. Results are consistent when analyzing county-level data for the contiguous U.S., for each different U.S. region separately (Northeast, Midwest, South and West), and when analyzing city-level data for California. Author Affiliation: (a) Department of Economics, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 214 David Kinley Hall, 1407 West Gregory Drive, Urbana, IL 61801, USA (b) Department of Economics, Universidade Federal de Pernambuco, Brazil * Corresponding author. Article History: Received 25 March 2021; Revised 17 March 2022; Accepted 8 June 2022 (footnote)[white star] We are indebted to Mauricio Bugarin, Thomas Fujiwara, Francesco Passarelli, Andrea Tesei, Robson Tigre, Giuseppe Trevisan, and seminar participants at the American Economic Association, the Association for Public and Economic Theory, and the Brazilian Econometric Society. Byline: Guilherme Amorim [gm10@illinois.edu] (*,a), Rafael Costa Lima (b), Breno Sampaio (b)

Keywords Data extraction; Incentives; Users' naivety; Privacy Highligths * We study the optimal incentives to induce a digital platform to limit the extraction of data from users. * Users may be naïve and over-use the platform, incurring in a privacy loss. * We show that caps on the amount of data collected can induce the optimal data-saving effort by the platform. * If the platform's effort is not observable, caps should be more stringent for more naïve users. * Compensating users for their data can efficiently incentivize effort, but might increase the privacy loss of more naive users. Abstract In this paper, we study the optimal design of incentives to induce a digital platform to limit the extraction of data from users, whose privacy loss is further aggravated by their naive use of the platform. We show that caps on the amount of data collected can induce the optimal data-saving effort by the platform. If the platform's effort is not observable, a menu of data caps should be provided and it entails a higher (lower) loss of privacy for less (more) naive users, relative to the first best. We also show that compensating users for their data can efficiently incentivize effort, but might increase the privacy loss of more naive users. Author Affiliation: Politecnico di Torino, Department of Management, Corso Duca degli Abruzzi 24, Torino 10129, Italy * Corresponding authors. Article History: Received 8 November 2021; Revised 29 April 2022; Accepted 26 June 2022 (footnote)[white star] We thank Maria Rosa Battaggion, Marc Bourreau, Steffen Hoernig, Byung-Cheol Kim, David E. Sappington, Yossi Spiegel and seminar participants at SIEPI 2020 and NERI 2020, as well as the editor and two anonymous referees, for useful comments and suggestions. Byline: Laura Abrardi [laura.abrardi@polito.it] (*), Carlo Cambini [carlo.cambini@polito.it]

Keywords Public-private partnerships; Auctions; Universal service auctions; High-speed broadband provision; Public finance Highlights * Proposes a simple auction approach to procure high-speed broadband. * Points out deficiencies of common universal service auction. * Shows that the proposed procurement method is easy to implement, * efficient, and immune to strategic manipulations and renegotiations. Abstract Millions of citizens and firms lack access to high speed internet, even though governments pledged to spend huge sums of money to subsidize internet networks. In this paper we review some systematic flaws of present policies and outline a promising alternative. We propose that governments should treat the broadband infrastructure as a public responsibility and set up public-private partnerships that deploy, fund, and temporarily operate the broadband in exchange for collecting service fees and, if necessary, subsidies. Least-present-value-of-revenue auctions can be used to award all concessions, not only those that are expected to require subsidies, and concessions should revert to public ownership and be re-auctioned if the promised present value of revenue has been reached through collection of service fees. This procurement method is easy to implement, efficient, and immune to strategic manipulations and renegotiations. Author Affiliation: Humboldt-University at Berlin, Germany Article History: Received 8 December 2021; Revised 1 July 2022; Accepted 6 August 2022 (footnote)[white star] Discussions with Eduardo Engel and detailed comments by Ingo Vogelsang and an anonymous referee are gratefully acknowledged. Byline: Elmar G. Wolfstetter [elmar.wolfstetter@rz.hu-berlin.de]

To link to full-text access for this article, visit this link: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.infoecopol.2009.12.003 Byline: Mark M. Bykowsky (a), Mark Olson (b), William W. Sharkey (a) Keywords: Congestion; Unlicensed spectrum; Auctions Abstract: This paper is concerned with the merits of employing market forces to address the issues of wireless spectrum congestion and the allocation of spectrum between firms seeking licensed and unlicensed spectrum rights. We show that when unlicensed spectrum is assigned to all competing users during periods of excess demand an inefficient outcome related to the 'Tragedy of the Commons' is likely to result. This inefficiency can be substantially reduced when the assignment of users to unlicensed spectrum is based on the bandwidth and latency tolerance needs of the competing users. Further efficiency gains can also occur when users are required to bid to have their 'unlicensed spectrum' needs met in the presence of congestion. The paper also examines the merits of creating an auction based market in which firms providing spectrum based services to users bid to have their 'spectrum regime' needs satisfied. The objective of this approach is to reduce the incentive that service operators have to misstate their expressed value for a given license regime. The efficiency of this approach is based in large part on the auction mechanism's ability to solve a 'collective action problem' in which firms desiring unlicensed spectrum have an incentive to 'free-ride' on the bidding behavior of other unlicensed firms. Together our results open up the possibility that a wide variety of spectrum policy issues may be efficiently solved using a market-based approach. They further suggest that there may be a 'hybrid' regime that combines the best features of the license and unlicensed regimes and, thus, lead to a more efficient use of spectrum at any moment in time. Author Affiliation: (a) Office of Strategic Planning and Policy Analysis, Federal Communications Commission, 445 12th Street S.W., Washington, DC 20554, USA (b) Interdisciplinary Center for Economic Science, 4400 University Drive, MSN 1B2, Fairfax, VA 22030, USA Article Note: (footnote) [star] The analyses and conclusions in this paper are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the view of other members of the Office of Strategic Planning and Policy Analysis, other Commission Staff, or any Commissioner. The authors thank Chuck Needy and James Miller for very helpful comments on an earlier draft.

To link to full-text access for this article, visit this link: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.infoecopol.2008.07.002 Byline: Joan Calzada Keywords: Postal sector; Universal service; Uniform price; Quality; Coverage Abstract: This paper examines competition in the postal sector when one private incumbent and one entrant play a three-stage game. First, firms choose their coverage. Then, they choose the quality of the mail. Finally, firms choose the price. I modify the traditional model of product differentiation proposed by Mussa and Rosen [Mussa, M., Rosen, S., 1978. Monopoly and product quality. Journal of Economic Theory 18, 301-317] in order to consider that firms decide their quality and coverage. Valletti et al. [Valletti, T., Hoernig, S., Barros, P., 2002. Universal service and entry: the role of uniform pricing and coverage constraints. Journal of Regulatory Economics 21 (2), 169-190] show that when an incumbent is regulated by a uniform pricing constraint the entrant will choose a low level of coverage to increase the incumbent's uniform price and weaken competition. In this paper, I show that by increasing product differentiation, the entrant can obtain the same price increase with a smaller reduction of coverage. Acknowledgement of the strategic link between quality and coverage can be very useful in the design of a regulatory policy. The paper also considers a mixed duopoly in which the public firm covers the entire market and offers high quality service. In this context, I explain that the mixed equilibrium implements the first-best qualities and coverage levels. Author Affiliation: Universitat de Barcelona and GPRE-IREA, Departament de Politica Economica, Avenue Diagonal, 690, Barcelona 08034, Spain Article History: Received 29 November 2006; Revised 30 July 2008; Accepted 31 July 2008

To link to full-text access for this article, visit this link: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.infoecopol.2007.10.003 Byline: Gergely Csorba Keywords: Network effects; Expectations; Second-degree discrimination; Sequential contracts; Divide-and-conquer strategies; Monotone comparative statics Abstract: This paper shows how pessimistic expectations reduce the effectivity of monopolist screening techniques with positive network effects, and demonstrates how divide-and-conquer strategies can solve the consumers' coordination problem. In the sequential mechanism, different expectations about future network size become relevant in the incentive constraints of different consumer types. Screening consumers is less costly in later periods, so pooling may be beneficial in early stages of contracting. The joint presence of asymmetric information and positive network effects yields a strict downward distortion from the welfare-maximizing quantity scheme, while unique implementation has further downward distorting effects. Author Affiliation: Institute of Economics at the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, BudaArsi u. 45, Budapest 1112, Hungary Hungarian Competition Authority, Alkotmany u. 5, Budapest 1054, Hungary Article History: Received 28 June 2006; Revised 26 October 2007; Accepted 26 October 2007 Article Note: (footnote) [star] This paper is based on Chapter 4 of my doctoral thesis at Central European University (2006). I thank Patrick Rey for motivating discussions, and Mark Armstrong, Peter Benczur, and seminar participants at UCL, Keele University and the 2006 European Meeting of the Econometric Society for their comments on earlier versions. Finally, I am grateful to Editor Tommaso Valletti, an anonymous Associate Editor, and two anonymous referees for their insightful suggestions. All remaining errors are mine.

To link to full-text access for this article, visit this link: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.infoecopol.2007.06.006 Byline: George R.G. Clarke Keywords: Internet; Development; Exports Abstract: Many commentators have suggested that the internet is one of the forces driving globalization. This paper assesses one aspect of these claims, looking at whether internet access appears to affect the export performance using data from enterprises in low and middle-income economies in Eastern Europe and Central Asia. The paper finds a strong correlation between exporting and internet access at the enterprise level. Moreover, this correlation remains after controlling factors that might affect both exports and internet connectivity and self-selectivity. Author Affiliation: Regional Program on Enterprise Development, Africa Finance and Private Sector Group, The World Bank, MSN J10-0001, 1818 H Street, NW, Washington, DC 20433, United States Article History: Received 28 July 2005; Revised 9 June 2007; Accepted 18 June 2007 Article Note: (footnote) [star] The data used in this paper are from the World Business Environment Survey (WBES) A[c]2000 The World Bank Group. I would like to thank Francisco Daveri, L. Colin Xu and participants at UNU WIDER conference on The New Economy in Development for comments on earlier drafts and Luke Haggarty and Andrew Stone for their help with the data. Responsibility for all errors, omissions, and opinions rests solely with the author. All findings, interpretations, and conclusions expressed in this paper are entirely those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of the World Bank, its Executive Directors, or the countries they represent.

To access, purchase, authenticate, or subscribe to the full-text of this article, please visit this link: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.infoecopol.2016.12.002 Byline: FranAaAaAeAoois Jeanjean [francois.jeanjean@orange.com] (*,a), Georg Vivien Houngbonon [gvivienh@gmail.com] (b) Keywords Market structure; Investment; Mobile telecommunications Highlights * Effect of market structure, that is the number of operators and asymmetry, on investment. * Operator level data, dynamic panel model with two-step system GMM. * The number of operators and market share asymmetry have significant effects on investment. * In symmetric markets, investment per operator falls by 16% with additional entry. * Industry investment rises with the number of operators in the short run, but falls in the long run. Abstract The impact of market structure, that is the number of firms and asymmetry, on investment is an important topic in the mobile industry. However, previous literature remains ambiguous about the direction of the relationship. This paper provides an empirical evidence of the impact of market structure on investment in the European mobile industry. The empirical assessment is based on a Salop model with vertical differentiation. Consistently with the prediction of this model, we find that both the number of operators and market share asymmetry have significant effects on investment. In symmetric markets, investment per operator falls with the number of operators, with larger effects for operators that lose market share more than the average. The industry investment rises with the number of operators in the short run, but eventually falls in the long run due to significant adjustment costs of investment in the mobile industry. These findings suggest that investment should be taken into account when analysing the welfare effects of market structure in the mobile industry. Author Affiliation: (a) Orange, 78 rue Olivier de Serres, 75505, Paris Cedex 15, France (b) Institut d'Economie Industrielle (IDEI), 21 AllAaAaAeA@e de Brienne, 310 Toulouse, France & Paris School of Economics (PSE), 48 Boulevard Jourdan, 75014, Paris, France * Corresponding author at: Orange, 78 rue Olivier de Serres, 75505, Paris Cedex 15, France. Article History: Received 25 February 2016; Revised 9 December 2016; Accepted 11 December 2016 (footnote)[white star] This paper was presented at the International Telecommunications Society Conference 2015 in Madrid, the ADRES doctoral conference 2015 in Cergy Pontoise (France) and the International Industrial Organisation Conference 2016 in Philadelphia (USA). We are grateful to Michael Mbate and to our colleagues at the Paris School of Economics and Orange for comments and suggestions. We would like to thank the Editor, the Associate Editor and two anonymous referees for insightful comments and suggestions. The usual disclaimer applies.

To link to full-text access for this article, visit this link: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.infoecopol.2007.01.001 Byline: Eugenio Archontopoulos (a), Dominique Guellec (b), Niels Stevnsborg (c), Bruno van Pottelsberghe de la Potterie (d)(e), Nicolas van Zeebroeck (f) Keywords: Patent drafting; Patent voluminosity; Patent applications; Patent statistics; Patent systems; Workload Abstract: The joint increase in the number and size of patents filed around the world puts patent systems under pressure. This paper addresses issues in measuring the voluminosity of patent applications and highlights patterns in its evolution. The results, based on a database of 2 million EPO applications, show that the average size of applications has doubled over the past 20 years and that this is mainly associated with PCT applications having a US priority. Voluminosity indicators are influenced by geographical origins and technological areas and strongly impact the workload of the EPO, justifying the need for regulatory and policy actions. Author Affiliation: (a) European Patent Office, Directorate 1.2.43 Computers, Directorate 0.3.1 Economics and Strategy Patentlaan 2, 2288EE Rijswijk, The Netherlands (b) OECD, DSTI, Rue Andre Pascal, 2-75775 Paris Cedex 16, France (c) European Patent Office, Directorate 1.2.21 Industrial Chemistry, Patentlaan 2-2288EE Rijswijk, The Netherlands (d) European Patent Office, Erhard Strasse 27, 80298 Munchen, Germany (e) ULB, Solvay Business School, CEB, DULBEA and CEPR, CP145/01 - Avenue Roosevelt 21, 1050 Brussels, Belgium (f) ULB, Solvay Business School, Centre Emile Bernheim (CEB), CP145/01 - Avenue Roosevelt 21, 1050 Brussels, Belgium Article History: Received 11 October 2006; Revised 31 December 2006; Accepted 4 January 2007 Article Note: (footnote) [star] The opinions expressed in this paper are the sole responsibility of the authors and do not necessarily reflect any position or policy of the institution to which the authors are affiliated. The authors thank Stephen Papandropoulos and two anonymous referees for their very constructive comments and remarks on the present paper.

To link to full-text access for this article, visit this link: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.infoecopol.2006.04.001 Byline: Lisa Correa Keywords: Productivity; Input-output analysis; Technical change; Telecommunications Abstract: This paper investigates the relationship between telecommunications infrastructure competition, investment and productivity. Using a novel methodology comprising of econometric modelling and input-output economics, the extent to which telecommunications has contributed to national and sectoral productivity performance is examined. The main findings from this paper suggest that most industries have benefited from the incorporation of advances of telecommunications technology, which might have, amongst other things, emanated from encouraging infrastructure investment, in their production processes. Author Affiliation: Department of Economics, Queen Mary, University of London , Mile End Road, London E1 4NS, United Kingdom Article History: Received 14 August 2005; Revised 31 March 2006; Accepted 5 April 2006 Article Note: (footnote) [star] The author is indebted to Richard Allard, Pietro Crocioni, Martin Cave, Federica Maiorano, Barbara Veronese, Paul Belleflamme, Richard Green, Leonard Waverman, the participants of the ITS Conference in Pontevedra, 20-22 July 2004 and two anonymous referees for their insightful comments on this paper. All views expressed in the paper and any remaining errors are solely the responsibility of the author.

To link to full-text access for this article, visit this link: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.infoecopol.2005.07.002 Byline: Walter Distaso (a), Paolo Lupi (b), Fabio M. Manenti (c) Keywords: Broadband; Inter-platform and intra-platform competition; Local loop unbundling Abstract: Broadband access provides users with high speed, always-on connectivity to the Internet. Due to its superiority, broadband is seen as the way for consumers and firms to exploit the great potentials of new applications. This has generated a policy debate on how to stimulate adoption of broadband technology. One of the most disputed issues is about competition policies: these may be intended to promote competition in the Digital Subscriber Line (DSL) segment of the market (intra-platform competition), or to stimulate entry into the market for alternative platforms such as cable access or fiber optics (inter-platform competition). Using a model of oligopoly competition between differentiated products, our paper explicitly studies the effects of inter- and intra-platform competition on the diffusion of broadband access. The implications of the model are then tested using data from 14 European countries. The econometric evidence confirms the results of the theoretical model and indicates that while inter-platform competition drives broadband adoption, competition in the market for DSL services does not play a significant role. The results also confirm that lower unbundling prices stimulate broadband uptake. Author Affiliation: (a) Department of Economics, Queen Mary, University of London, Mile End Road, London E1 4NS, UK (b) Servizio Analisi di Mercato e Concorrenza, Autorita per le garanzie nelle comunicazioni, Centro Direzionale, Isola B5, 80143 Napoli, Italy (c) Dipartimento di Scienze Economiche 'Marco Fanno', Universita di Padova, Via del Santo 33, 35123 Padova, Italy Article History: Received 5 October 2004; Revised 26 July 2005; Accepted 27 July 2005 Article Note: (footnote) [star] Paper presented at the 3rd conference of the Industrial Organization Society, at the joint Public Utility Research Center - University of Florida and London Business School telecommunications conference, at the 31st conference of the European Association of Research in Industrial Economics and at 15th conference of the International Telecommunications Society. We thank Johannes Bauer, Federico Mini and Carlo Cambini for useful comments on earlier versions of the paper; we are also grateful to two anonymous referees and to Aldo Geuna, editor of Information Economics and Policy, for their throughout comments and suggestions. Distaso gratefully acknowledges financial support from the ESRC, Grant code R000230006.

To link to full-text access for this article, visit this link: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.infoecopol.2005.02.005 Byline: Huub Meijers Keywords: New Economy; Internet diffusion; Inflation; Cournot Oligopoly model Abstract: The adherents of the so-called 'New Economy' claim that we are entering a new era with high output growth, low unemployment and low inflation. ICT investments in general and the increased use of the Internet play an important role in this claim. In the literature we find three different explanations for the low inflation experience. Increased productivity growth combined with sluggish adjustment of wages, improved credibility of monetary policy and improved functioning of the labour market. This paper provides another explanation where adoption of Internet as a cost reducing and efficiency improving technology changes market structures and affects the mark-up margins of firms and thereby the relation between costs and output prices. The diffusion of the Internet as a cost saving technology is introduced in a model with network effects and dynamic market structures. The latter two result in an endogenous diffusion process of the use of the Internet for business-to-business commerce. However, there is also some feedback from the increased adoption of the Internet. Diffusion also affects the market structure and therefore the gains of the efficiency improvements obtained by doing business via the Internet. The combination of the diffusion of the Internet, the characteristics of network effects and the dynamics of the markets can explain variation in the mark-up on production costs explains at least a part of the low inflation experience. However, the model also predicts that the inflation suppressing effect of the increased use of the Internet eventually will cease and that inflation will increase in the longer run. The paper adds two new elements to the existing literature. First, it describes a model that combines network effects with changes in market structures to explain the diffusion of a cost reducing technology, i.e. the Internet. Second, it uses this model to explain the current low-inflation experience. Author Affiliation: Maastricht Economic Research Institute on Innovation and Technology MERIT, University Maastricht, P.O. Box 616, 6200 MD Maastricht, The Netherlands Article History: Received 1 September 2004; Revised 2 February 2005; Accepted 2 February 2005

To link to full-text access for this article, visit this link: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.infoecopol.2005.02.002 Byline: Gunnar Eliasson Keywords: Competence bloc theory; Experimentally organized economy; Management theory; WAD theory; Firm dynamics; Learning Abstract: The development of management theory and practice and their informational assumptions are followed over three phases of economic development; (1) the pre-oil crisis experience 1969-1975, (2) the post oil crisis sobering up through most of the 1990s and (3) the emergence of globally distributed production organizations, blurring the notion of the firm to be managed. The change from a belief in a predictable environment and only marginally uninformed actors to an increasing recognition of the fundamental ignorance that enters all business decisions, the consequent business mistakes and that learning between the periods has been of limited value and often misleading is found to be reflected in business information systems. The increased rate of failure among large firms in recent decades appears to be related to the increasing complexity of business decisions, the decreased reliability of learning and the difficulties of controlling the value chain in globally distributed production. Author Affiliation: Department of Infrastructure, Royal Institute of Technology (KTH) and The Ratio Institute, P.O. Box 5095, SE-10242 Stockholm, Sweden Article History: Received 6 July 2004; Revised 4 January 2005; Accepted 4 January 2005 Article Note: (footnote) [star] This study is part of the project: The Macroeconomic Effects of Computer and Communications Technology, funded by Vinnova, earlier the Swedish Transport and Communications Board (Kommunikationsforskningsberedningen, Kfb). See . Earlier versions of this paper were presented at the Pacific Telecommunications Council Conference (PTC), January 20-22 1997 (published in 29 Annual Pacific Telecommunications Conference, plenary sessions) in Honolulu, at the 14th Nordic Conference on Business Studies, BodA[cedilla], Norway, August 1997 and at the Druid Conference on Bornholm, organized June 9-10, 1998 by the Copenhagen Business School. An earlier version appeared as working paper 1998:19 in the KTH TRITA series, Stockholm.

To link to full-text access for this article, visit this link: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.infoecopol.2004.12.001 Byline: Gwanghoon Lee Keywords: R&D Spillovers; Direct Effect; Telecommunications; Patents; Productivity Abstract: Using a newly constructed panel dataset and up-to-date econometric approaches, this paper shows that consideration of the role of direct knowledge spillovers through telecommunications networks is crucial in empirical studies of international R&D spillovers. The paper uses data on line penetration rates as well as international patent citations to estimate the direct spillover effect. The robust indirect effect through intermediate goods imports asserted by previous studies proves fragile when the estimation controls for the direct effect. Instead, the direct effect is robust and significant. Estimation results also show that the direct effect has increased with widespread use of the Internet. Author Affiliation: Department of Economics, Chung-Ang University, Dong-Jak Gu, Seoul 156-756, Republic of Korea

To link to full-text access for this article, visit this link: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.infoecopol.2004.11.001 Byline: Hiroshi Kinokuni Keywords: Remuneration scheme; Copying; Compensation; Blank media; Bargaining Abstract: This paper investigates how hardware and/or blank media firms remunerate software publishers. If a software publisher is able to produce copy-protected software, the levy rate can be decided by negotiation between the software publisher and levy payers without the intervention of government. This paper examines conditions under which the remuneration scheme succeeds in compensating the software publisher for loss of profits due to copying. Author Affiliation: Faculty of Economics, Ritsumeikan University, 1-1-1 Nojihigashi, Kusatsu, Shiga 525-8577, Japan Article History: Received 11 June 2004; Accepted 9 November 2004

Keywords Digital platform; Big Tech; Venture capital; Start-up; Innovation funding; Kill zones Highlights * We investigate the effects of Big Tech platform acquisitions on venture capital funding for start-ups. * Data consists of 32,000 venture capital deals and nearly 400 tech start-up acquisitions made by Google, Facebook, Amazon, Apple, and Microsoft between 2010 and 2020. * Findings suggest positive effects of Big Tech start-up acquisitions on venture capital activity worldwide, in Europe, and in the Unites States. * We discuss the repercussions of acquisitions and their effects on funding on the start-up innovation ecosystem. * These insights are relevant for the current policy discussions on platform regulation. Abstract This paper investigates the effects of 'Big Tech' platform acquisitions on venture capital (VC) funding for start-ups. We analyze 32,367 venture capital deals between 2010 and 2020, and 392 tech start-up acquisitions by Google, Facebook, Amazon, Apple, and Microsoft. Results obtained with fixed effects panel and differences-in-differences estimators reveal a positive, statistically significant, average effect of Big Tech start-up acquisitions on worldwide, venture capital activity. Positive effects were also found for the United States and Europe. However, the findings suggest that the effects are transient and fade away after several quarters. Because venture capitalists fund start-ups to enable entrepreneurial innovation, this approach also informs our understanding of the repercussions of these acquisitions on the start-up innovation ecosystem. The large number of observations over an extended period unlocks insights into historical patterns that are relevant for the design of digital platform policies. Author Affiliation: Department of Media and Information, Quello Center for Media and Information Policy, Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI, USA * Corresponding author. Article History: Received 17 August 2021; Revised 25 March 2022; Accepted 4 May 2022 Byline: Tiago S. Prado [pradotia@msu.edu] (*), Johannes M. Bauer

Keywords Secret technology; Economic espionage; Counter-espionage policy; Market entry barrier; Market welfare Highlights * Governments of advanced economies are increasing the efforts in countering illicit attempts to acquire information about critical technologies employed by their industries (economic espionage). * Level of competition influences the dynamics of the interaction between economic espionage and counter-espionage. * This influence is complex in the case of the espionage effort behavior and demand characteristics play an important role. * A positive effort in counter-espionage is always optimal although the level of competition has a negative effect. Abstract Governments of advanced economies are extremely concerned about the illicit acquisition of information on critical technologies employed by their industries, and countering this economic espionage is quickly becoming one of their top priorities. The present paper advances the theoretical analysis of the interaction between economic espionage and counter-espionage, and presents a first approximation to an inquiry into the rationale for the influence of market competition in its dynamics. The proposed model assumes a country with a one-market economy open to international trade whose product is supplied by domestic firms. Moreover, successful economic espionage implying market entry of foreign firms would harm domestic welfare. Considering counter-espionage policy as entry barrier and sufficient efficiency in espionage and counter-espionage efforts, the analysis of the benchmark case characterized by no foreign consumer and one foreign firm suggests that demand characteristics play an important role in the complex influence of competition in espionage. Irrespective of this, optimal counter-espionage effort is always positive although negatively affected by competition. Author Affiliation: (a) Department of Finance and Accounting and LEE, Universitat Jaume I, Castellón, Spain (b) Department of Economic Analysis, Universitat de València, Valencia, Spain * Corresponding author. Article History: Received 31 May 2020; Revised 23 December 2021; Accepted 5 January 2022 Byline: Alex Barrachina [abarrach@uji.es] (*,a), Teresa Forner-Carreras [teresa.forner@uv.es] (b)

Keywords Remote work; On-site work; Stay-at-home requirements; Cost of working on-site; COVID-19; Online labour markets Highlights * We explore the effect of mobility restrictions on the substitution between on-site and remote work. * COVID-19-related mobility restrictions increased the cost of on-site work. * We use unique company data from a large European online labour market. * We find that employers are substituting remote employment for on-site employment. * There is no substantial change in overall employment. Abstract Intensified by the COVID-19 pandemic, online labour markets are at the core of the economic and policy debate about the future of work and the conditions under which we work online. We analyse the effects of an increase in the cost of on-site work induced by COVID-19-related mobility restrictions on the substitution between on-site and remote job postings and between on-site and remote hires. We benefit from the fact that the implementation of stay-at-home requirements varies by country, time and level. We use unique company data from a large European online labour market. We provide empirical evidence for a positive effect of stay-at-home restrictions on job postings and hires of remote work relative to on-site work. Overall, our results suggest that employers are substituting remote employment for on-site employment, while there is no substantial change in overall employment. Author Affiliation: (a) University of the Bundeswehr Munich, Neubiberg, Germany (b) Max Planck Institute for Innovation and Competition, Munich, Germany (c) University of the Balearic Islands, Palma de Mallorca, Spain * Corresponding author. Article History: Received 17 December 2020; Revised 21 September 2021; Accepted 14 October 2021 (footnote)# Both authors contributed equally to this paper. Frank Mueller-Langer gratefully acknowledges financial support from a research grant of the University of the Bundeswehr Munich. Byline: Frank Mueller-Langer [frank.mueller-langer@ip.mpg.de] (a,b,*), Estrella Gómez-Herrera (c,#)

Highlights * We analyze implications of digital technologies for the media market. * More media outlets may lead to lower quality news and more political capture. * We make distinctions between traditional media outlets and fringe digital media. * Original news has a limited exclusive supply period due to copying by other media outlets. Abstract This paper develops a model of investigative journalism and media capture in the market for news with the depreciation of the value of news over time and a limited exclusive supply period of original news due to copying by other media outlets. We make distinctions between traditional media outlets that engage in investigative journalism and fringe digital media that mainly copy and spread original news created elsewhere. We show that the quantity and quality of news with investigative journalism decrease and media capture is more likely as digital technologies induce a lower fixed cost of entry for the fringe firms and a shorter exclusive supply period of news. These results may explain why there is scant evidence for the conventional view that more media outlets lead to higher quality news and less political capture, despite proliferation of news and information outlets in the digital age. Author Affiliation: (a) Department of Economics, Michigan State University, 220A Marshall-Adams Hall, East Lansing, MI 48824 -1038, United States (b) School of Economics, Yonsei University, Seoul, Korea (c) Graduate School of Economics, Yonsei University, 50 Yonsei-ro, Seodaemun-gu, Seoul, 03722, Korea * Corresponding author. Article History: Received 22 August 2020; Revised 11 August 2021; Accepted 23 August 2021 (footnote)[white star] We would like to thank the Co-Editor (Luis Aguiar), an Associate Editor, and two anonymous referees for very helpful and constructive comments which greatly improved this article. Youngjun Lee provided excellent research assistance. This article has been developed partially from a chapter of Sangwoo Yang's Ph.D. dissertation. This work was supported by the Ministry of Education of the Republic of Korea and the National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF-2020S1A5A2A01040865). Byline: Jay Pil Choi [choijay@msu.edu] (*,a,b), Sangwoo Yang [sangwoo.y@gmail.com] (c)