The paper analyzes and compares the investment incentives of platform and application developers for Linux and Windows. We find that the level of investment in applications is larger when the operating system is open source rather than proprietary. The comparison of the levels of investment in...

The paper analyzes and compares the investment incentives of platform and application developers for Linux and Windows. We find that the level of investment in applications is larger when the operating system is open source rather than proprietary. The comparison of the levels of investment in...

Since 2008, multiple smartphone platforms have launched versions of “app stores”, marketplaces where consumers can purchase and download software applications for their smartphone. This paper provides evidence for both demand and supply of “apps” using data on the size and composition of...

Consumers buy internet access from Internet Service Providers (ISPs) to reach online content providers. Under net neutrality, an ISP is not allowed to discriminate between content providers, even though it might have an incentive to do so. An ISP might want to sell a “fast lane” to content...

We compare four approaches to network neutrality and network management regulation in a two-sided market model: (i) no variations in Quality of Service and no price discrimination; (ii) variations in Quality of Service but no price discrimination; (iii) variations in Quality of Service and price...

We study firm performance dynamics in retail growth using a dynamic model of expansion that allow these dynamics to operate through an unobserved serially correlated process. The model is estimated with data on convenience-store chain diffusion across Japanese prefectures from 1982 to 2012,...

Public “Beta” launches have become a preferred route of entry into the markets for new software products and web site based services. While beta testing of novel products is nothing new, typically such tests were done by experts within firm boundaries. What makes public beta testing so...

The phenomenon of sponsored search advertising where advertisers pay a fee to Internet search engines to be displayed alongside organic (non-sponsored) web search results is gaining ground as the largest source of revenues for search engines. Using a unique panel dataset of several hundred...

This paper uses consumer search data to explain search frictions in online markets, within the context of an equilibrium search model. I use a novel dataset of consumer online browsing and purchasing behavior, which tracks all consumer search prior to each transaction. Using observed search...