On many two-sided platforms, users on one side not only care about user participation and usage l... more On many two-sided platforms, users on one side not only care about user participation and usage levels on the other side, but they also care about participation and usage of fellow users on the same side. Most prominent is the degree of seller competition on a platform catering to buyers and sellers. In this paper, we address how seller competition a¤ects platform pricing, product variety, and the number of platforms that carry trade.
Die Dokumente auf EconStor dürfen zu eigenen wissenschaftlichen Zwecken und zum Privatgebrauch ge... more Die Dokumente auf EconStor dürfen zu eigenen wissenschaftlichen Zwecken und zum Privatgebrauch gespeichert und kopiert werden. Sie dürfen die Dokumente nicht für öffentliche oder kommerzielle Zwecke vervielfältigen, öffentlich ausstellen, öffentlich zugänglich machen, vertreiben oder anderweitig nutzen. Sofern die Verfasser die Dokumente unter Open-Content-Lizenzen (insbesondere CC-Lizenzen) zur Verfügung gestellt haben sollten, gelten abweichend von diesen Nutzungsbedingungen die in der dort genannten Lizenz gewährten Nutzungsrechte. Terms of use: Documents in EconStor may be saved and copied for your personal and scholarly purposes. You are not to copy documents for public or commercial purposes, to exhibit the documents publicly, to make them publicly available on the internet, or to distribute or otherwise use the documents in public. If the documents have been made available under an Open Content Licence (especially Creative Commons Licences), you may exercise further usage rights as specified in the indicated licence.
This paper reviews the nascent literature on „two-sided markets“ which can be characterized by tw... more This paper reviews the nascent literature on „two-sided markets“ which can be characterized by two-sided indirect network effects. It presents key findings in this literature, derives some of them in numerical examples and discusses how these findings improve our understanding of real-world markets. It finally discusses some implications for competition policy.
We survey the economics literature on media as it applies to the Internet. The Internet is an imp... more We survey the economics literature on media as it applies to the Internet. The Internet is an important driver behind media convergence and connects information and communication technologies. While new Internet media share some properties with traditional media, several novel features have appeared: On the content side, aggregation by third parties that have no editorial policy and usergenerated content have become increasingly important. On the advertiser side, fine-tuned tailoring and targeting of ads based on individual user characteristics are common features on many Internet media and social networks. On the user side, we observe increased possibilities of time-shifting, multi-homing, and active search. These changes have gone hand-in-hand with new players entering media markets, including search engines and Internet service providers. Some of these players face novel strategic considerations, such as how to present search results. In response to these changes, an emerging economics literature focuses on the allocative and welfare implications of this new media landscape. This paper is an attempt to organize these contributions and provide a selective account of novel economic mechanisms that shape market outcomes of Internet media. A large body of work has focused on the advertising part of the industry, while some studies also look at content provision and the interaction between the two.
ABSTRACT This note summarizes and updates our previous survey of the economics of digital piracy ... more ABSTRACT This note summarizes and updates our previous survey of the economics of digital piracy (Belleflamme and Peitz, 2012).
Digital products have the property that they can be copied almost costlessly. This makes them can... more Digital products have the property that they can be copied almost costlessly. This makes them candidates for non-commercial copying by final consumers. Because the copy of a copy typically does not deteriorate in quality, copying products can become a widespread phenomenon-this can be illustrated by the surge of file-sharing networks. In this paper we provide a critical overview of the literature that addresses the economic consequences of enduser copying. We conclude that some models with network effects are well-suited for the analysis of software copying while other models incorporating the feature that copies provide information about the originals may be useful for the analysis of digital music copying.
Consider a differentiated product market in which all consumers are fully informed about match va... more Consider a differentiated product market in which all consumers are fully informed about match value and price at the time they make their purchasing decision. Initially, consumers become informed about the prices of all products in the market but do not know the match values. Some consumers have reference-dependent utilities-i.e., they form a reference-point distribution with respect to match value and price that will make them realize gains or losses if their eventually chosen product performs better or, respectively, worse than their reference point in both dimensions. Loss aversion in the match-value dimension leads to a less competitive outcome, while loss aversion in the price dimension leads to a more competitive equilibrium than a market in which consumers are not subject to reference dependence. Depending on the weights consumers attach to the price and the match-value dimension, a market with loss-averse consumers may be more or less competitive than a market with consumers that do not have reference-dependent utilities. We also show that consumer loss aversion tends to lead to higher prices if the market accommodates a larger number of firms. * A previous version of this paper was entitled "Consumer Loss Aversion and Competition in Differentiated Product Markets". We are grateful to Rani Spiegler and various seminar audiences for helpful comments and suggestions. Martin Peitz acknowledges financial support from the German Science Foundation (SFB TR 15).
The "net neutrality" principle has triggered a heated debate and advocates have proposed policy i... more The "net neutrality" principle has triggered a heated debate and advocates have proposed policy interventions. In this paper, we provide perspective by framing issues in terms of the positive economic factors at work. We stress the incentives of market participants, and highlight the economic conflicts behind the arguments put forward by the different parties. We also identify several key open questions.
We provide a treatment of a number of questions pertaining to pending patents – a subject that ha... more We provide a treatment of a number of questions pertaining to pending patents – a subject that has so-far mainly been discussed en-passant in the existing literature. We present the underlying institutional and legal framework that governs pending patents and some basic facts related to them. Then, we focus on the strategic considerations of firms in the earliest stage of
This paper provides a description of the crowdfunding sector, considering investmentbased crowdfu... more This paper provides a description of the crowdfunding sector, considering investmentbased crowdfunding platforms as well as platforms in which funders do not obtain monetary payments. It lays out key features of this quickly developing sector and explores the economic forces at play that can explain the design of these platforms. In particular, it elaborates on cross-group and within-group external effects and asymmetric information on crowdfunding platforms.
2002), “With a Little Help from my Enemy: Comparative Advertising,” mimeo
Comparative advertising content di¤ers from generic. We discover that dissipative advertising has... more Comparative advertising content di¤ers from generic. We discover that dissipative advertising has consequences depending upon content and cost. Comparison advertising may trigger legal action by rival …rms that are named. In the model an entrant signals its product quality. By a comparative ad the entrant refers to the incumbent’s product. We show that comparison can enhance the signaling potential of dissipative advertising. From the viewpoint of the entrant, the choice of comparative advertising empowers the rival with the right to sue; generic does not. Consumers therefore infer that if the entrant uses comparative instead of generic ads it has a strong case.
We use a 1998-2002 cross-section dataset to analyze the claim of losses due to internet piracy ma... more We use a 1998-2002 cross-section dataset to analyze the claim of losses due to internet piracy made by the record industry. The results suggest that internet piracy played a significant role in the decline in music sales during the early days of file-sharing networks.
Die Dokumente auf EconStor dürfen zu eigenen wissenschaftlichen Zwecken und zum Privatgebrauch ge... more Die Dokumente auf EconStor dürfen zu eigenen wissenschaftlichen Zwecken und zum Privatgebrauch gespeichert und kopiert werden. Sie dürfen die Dokumente nicht für öffentliche oder kommerzielle Zwecke vervielfältigen, öffentlich ausstellen, öffentlich zugänglich machen, vertreiben oder anderweitig nutzen. Sofern die Verfasser die Dokumente unter Open-Content-Lizenzen (insbesondere CC-Lizenzen) zur Verfügung gestellt haben sollten, gelten abweichend von diesen Nutzungsbedingungen die in der dort genannten Lizenz gewährten Nutzungsrechte. Terms of use: Documents in EconStor may be saved and copied for your personal and scholarly purposes. You are not to copy documents for public or commercial purposes, to exhibit the documents publicly, to make them publicly available on the internet, or to distribute or otherwise use the documents in public. If the documents have been made available under an Open Content Licence (especially Creative Commons Licences), you may exercise further usage rights as specified in the indicated licence.
Die Dokumente auf EconStor dürfen zu eigenen wissenschaftlichen Zwecken und zum Privatgebrauch ge... more Die Dokumente auf EconStor dürfen zu eigenen wissenschaftlichen Zwecken und zum Privatgebrauch gespeichert und kopiert werden. Sie dürfen die Dokumente nicht für öffentliche oder kommerzielle Zwecke vervielfältigen, öffentlich ausstellen, öffentlich zugänglich machen, vertreiben oder anderweitig nutzen. Sofern die Verfasser die Dokumente unter Open-Content-Lizenzen (insbesondere CC-Lizenzen) zur Verfügung gestellt haben sollten, gelten abweichend von diesen Nutzungsbedingungen die in der dort genannten Lizenz gewährten Nutzungsrechte. Terms of use: Documents in EconStor may be saved and copied for your personal and scholarly purposes. You are not to copy documents for public or commercial purposes, to exhibit the documents publicly, to make them publicly available on the internet, or to distribute or otherwise use the documents in public. If the documents have been made available under an Open Content Licence (especially Creative Commons Licences), you may exercise further usage rights as specified in the indicated licence.
Access Regulation and the Adoption of a New Technology: The Case of VoIP1
ABSTRACT also affiliated with the ENCORE Fellows Network; pdebijl@uvt.nl. 3 School of Business Ad... more ABSTRACT also affiliated with the ENCORE Fellows Network; pdebijl@uvt.nl. 3 School of Business Administration, International University in Germany, Campus 3, 76646 Bruch-sal, Germany, also affiliated with the ENCORE and CESifo Fellows Network; Martin.Peitz@i-u.de.
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Papers by Martin Peitz