We use variation in wind speeds at surfing locations in Switzerland as exogenous shifters of users' propensity to post content about their surfing activity onto an online social network. We exploit this variation to test whether users' social ties on the network have a causal effect on their...

This paper proposes methods for identifying indirect network effects with dynamically optimizing consumers purchasing a durable hardware good and associated software. We apply this model to data drawn from the DVD player and titles markets. We observe model-level prices, sales and...

This paper examines the importance of indirect network effects in the U.S. video game market between 1994 and 2002. The diffusion of game systems is analyzed by the interaction between console adoption decisions and software supply decisions. Estimation results suggest that introductory pricing...

This paper explores differences in consumers' grocery shopping behavior when they shop online and in a brick-and-mortar store. To do so, I assemble a new scanner dataset that tracks customers' grocery purchases in-store and on the Internet. This allows comparison in behavior of the same...

This paper studies the role of firm heterogeneity and information spillovers in the sourcing decision to provide web services. To this end, we develop a theoretical model that relates these factors to firms' decisions to outsource or use in-house resources (insource). Based on this theoretical...

This paper investigates the price war in the UK quality newspaper industry in the 1990s. We build a model of the newspaper market which encompasses demand for differentiated products on both, the readers and advertisers side of the market, and profit maximization by four competing oligopolistic...

This paper studies a spatial model of electronic business network formation where firms build links based on a cost-benefit analysis. Benefits result from directly and indirectly connected firms in terms of knowledge flows, which are heterogeneous: a "key-player" (e.g. a firm providing an...

We analyze the linking and versioning strategies of a media firm when facing competition from blogs, search engines and news aggregators. First, we show that when the publisher competes against a blog it is less likely to release a “fighting version” if this generates significant spillovers...

This paper empirically investigates the relation between vertical integration and video game performance in the US video game industry. For this purpose, we use a widely used data set from NPD on video game monthly sales from October 2000 to October 2007. We complement these data with handly...

Theories of multi-sided markets suggest that a platform’s pricing strategies on different sides of the market are closely linked, and in particular, an increase in competition on one side may lead to an increase in price on other sides. We empirically examine platforms’ pricing strategies by...