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To authenticate to the full-text of this article, please visit this link: http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-8586.2008.00298.x Byline: Paolo Lupi ([dagger]), Fabio M. Manenti ([double dagger]) Keywords: alliances; interconnection; international roaming; interoperator tariffs; mobile telecommunications; traffic direction techniques Abstract: ABSTRACT Despite a general trend of lower charges for mobile calls, in Europe, prices for international roaming calls have remained at levels that are surprisingly high. The apparent reluctance of mobile network operators to lower roaming tariff is generating many antitrust concerns. This paper presents in a two-country two-firm framework the functioning of the current system governing wholesale international roaming agreements based on interoperator tariffs. The focus is on the role of traffic management; thanks to the emergence of traffic direction techniques, mobile network operators are allowed to select the roaming partner. We show that, unless these techniques do not allow for perfect control on traffic flows, traffic management does not improve the market's efficiency. In line with the regulatory mechanism recently adopted by the European Commission, we show that a simple price cap mechanism may restore partial efficiency in the wholesale market. We also show that although cross-border cooperation at the wholesale level is Pareto efficient, it will not emerge as an equilibrium of a two-sided matching game. Author Affiliation: ([dagger])Direzione Analisi dei Mercati, Assetti e Concorrenza, Autorita per le garanzie nelle comunicazioni, Napoli, Italy ([double dagger])Dipartimento di Scienze Economiche 'M. Fanno', Universita di Padova, Padova, Italy Article note: Correspondence: Fabio M. Manenti, Dipartimento di Scienze Economiche 'M. Fanno', Universita di Padova, Via del Santo 33, 35123 Padova, Italy. Tel: (39) 49 8274238; Fax: (39)498274211; Email: fabio.manenti@unipd.it. The authors wish to thank Antonio Sciala and Luciano Greco for their valuable discussions and suggestions. We thank the two anonymous referees and the Editor of the Bulletin for the extremely careful and detailed comments on previous versions of the paper. Financial support from the University of Padua through the 'Progetto di Ateneo' research programme is gratefully acknowledged. The usual disclaimer applies. The views and opinions expressed herein are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect those of Autorita per le garanzie nelle comunicazioni.

This paper focuses on a specific strategy that developers of mobile applications may use to stimulate demand: The release of updates. We develop a theoretical analysis that shows that developers have incentives to release updates when experiencing a drop in performance. The predictions of the model are then tested using an unbalanced panel of top 1,000 apps in iTunes and Google Play for five European countries. We estimate that while in iTunes the release of an update stimulates a 26% increase in download growth, in Google Play updates play a less significant role. This difference is partly due to systematic differences in apps and in developers operating in the two stores ("selection effect"), and partly to a lack of quality control on apps and updates in Google Play ("quality check effect"). These findings highlight the crucial importance of an appropriate management of updates as well as the relevance of institutional characteristics of the app stores. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

During the last few decades, the number of patents in information and communication technologies has increased considerably. An increasing number of patents and the associated fragmentation of IP rights have generated a series of potentially problematic consequences. Patent thickets, royalty stacking, the emergence of patent assertion entities, increased patent litigation – particularly around standard essential patents – and the difficulties with defining fair, reasonable, and nondiscriminatory licensing terms are some of the most debated issues in the literature that we review in this paper. We devote a specific section of our survey to patent quality, currently one of the most debated issues surrounding the patent system. In our analysis, we mix theoretical and empirical arguments with a more policy‐oriented reasoning. This allows us to better position the different issues in the relevant political and economic context. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]