This paper examines a model in which advertisers bid for "sponsored-link" positions on a search engine. The value advertisers derive from each position is endogenized as coming from sales to a population of consumers who make rational inferences about firm qualities and search optimally....

This paper asks the question: Can we see evidence of General Purpose Technologies in patent data? Using data on three million US patents granted between 1967 and 1999, and their citations received between 1975 and 2002, we construct a number of measures of GPTs, including generality, number of...

Using a unique dataset we examine empirically which factors explain output per contributor in open source projects. We find that the output per contributor of open source programmes is much higher when licenses are less restrictive. Further examination suggests that the difference in output per...

We employ a unique data set on white-collar workers that combines direct observations of individual use of information technology as well as objective information on individual performance. The main hypothesis we examine is whether heavier users of IT are more productive, and if heavier users of...

Many observers have declared the ‘New Economy’ to be an Industrial Revolution even more important than the Second Industrial Revolution of 1860-1900, and this Paper raises doubts about this comparison. It shows that the recent acceleration in productivity growth in the US economy can be...

A buyout option enhances an auction by allowing a bidder to purchase the item at a pre-specified price (instead of attempting to obtain the item by way of auction). A comparison is made between the ex ante welfare of bidders in an auction with a buyout option to a traditional auction with no...

Presented are the results of the analyses of one of the most successful forms of the e-trade gaining more and more popularity – trade in internet, as well as of a formalized description of the most distributed and most often used for empirical studies models. The gained research experience...

Innovation in the U.S. economy is about employing and rewarding highly talented workers to produce new products. Using unique longitudinal matched employer-employee data, this paper makes a key connection between talent and firms in markets with risky product innovations. We show that software...

In this Paper, I explore the circumstances under which innovation processes without secrecy or intellectual property protection are viable, and where free revealing of innovations is a profit-maximizing strategy. Motivated by an empirical study of embedded Linux, I develop a duopoly model of...

We examine a Bertrand competition game between two intermediaries offering matching services between two sides of a market. Indirect network externalities arise as the probability of finding one's match with a given intermediary increase with the number of agents of the other side who use the...