Abstract I model dynamic product design along price and non-price dimensions by a firm in a market with positive network externalities between consumers. In the case of a usage fee, I provide conditions under which the steady state (SS) is unique and show that the introductory price is negative...

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...

In this paper, we study the dynamics of usage intensity of second-generation cellular telephony over the diffusion curve. We address two specific questions: First, does information about usage intensity over time allow us to draw conclusions about the underlying drivers of technology diffusion?...

We consider a two-sided market model with a monopolistic Internet Service Provider (ISP), network congestion sensitive content providers (CPs), and Internet customers in order to study the impact of Quality-of-Service (QoS) tiering on service innovation, broadband investments, and welfare in...

There is general concern that producer subsidies distort competition. We examine a telecommunications subsidy system that transfers money from low cost regions to high cost regions of the U.S. Even though the system is designed to be competitively neutral, we find evidence that the system,...

The success of the Kindle e-book platform and the increased popularity of e-books among members of the reading community have attracted extensive interest in the high-tech industry. New platform providers are jumping in the market to compete for device and e-book sales. In this paper, we model...

This paper investigates how switching costs affect product compatibility and market dynamics in network industries. A reduction in the switching cost makes the firms' products more attractive relative to the outside good, which diminishes the market expansion benefit of making products...

Online platforms, such as Google, Facebook, or Amazon, are constantly expanding their activities, while increasing the overlap in their service offering. In this paper, we study the scope and overlap of online platforms' activities, when they are endogenously determined. We model an expansion...

This paper considers platform competition in a two-sided market that includes buyers and sellers. One of the platforms benefits from a favorable coordination bias in the market, in that the two sides are more likely to join the advantaged platform. We find that the degree of the coordination...