Content providers rely on advertisers to pay for content. TiVo, remote controls, and pop-up ad blockers are examples of ad-avoidance technologies that allow consumers to view content without ads, and thereby siphon off the content without paying the ‘price.’ We examine the content...

We develop a theory of imperfect competition with loss-averse consumers. All consumers are fully informed about match value and price at the time they make their purchasing decision. However, a share of consumers are initially uncertain about their tastes and form a reference point consisting of...

Media industries are important drivers of popular culture. A large fraction of leisure time is devoted to radio, magazines, newspapers, the Internet, and television (the illustrative example henceforth). Most advertising expenditures are incurred for these media. They are also mainly supported...

I use a new Call Reports data item to revisit the role of advertising in US commercial banking. I examine how banks' advertising varies with the deposit market structure and whether bank profitability is influenced by advertising. My analysis addresses the endogeneity of market structure and...

We present a Hotelling model of price and advertising competition between prescription drugs that differ in quality/side e¤ects. Advertising results in the endogenous formation of two consumer groups: brand loyal and non-brand loyal ones. We show that advertising strategies are strategic...

This paper examines incentives for exclusive distribution of content in the presence of advertising. A monopoly seller of content - such as televisation rights to popular sports - may contract with one or both of two competing distributors, charging lump-sum fees. When distributors are...

We extend the persuasion game to bring it squarely into the economics of advertising. We model advertising as exciting consumer interest into learning more about the product, and determine a firm's equilibrium choice of advertising content over quality information, price information, and...

We model comparative advertising as brands pushing up own brand perception and pulling down the brand image of targeted rivals. We watched all TV advertisements for OTC analgesics 2001-2005 to construct matrices of rival targeting and estimate the structural model. These attack matrices identify...

Restricting advertising is one way governments seek to reduce consumption of potentially harmful goods. There have been increasing calls to apply a similar policy to the junk food market. The effect will depend on how brand advertising influences consumer demand, and on the strategic pricing...

This paper investigates the differential response of male and female voters to competitive persuasion in political campaigns. During the 2011 municipal elections in Milan, a sample of eligible voters was randomly divided into three groups. Two were exposed to the same incumbent’s campaign but...