We develop a game-theoretic model to explore why retail clusters are so popular in developing economies and when governments should facilitate the formation of retail clusters to improve social welfare. First, we find two determinants of retailer clusters: valuation-cost ratio (consumers'...

Microtasking, or dividing a task into small chunks, is often suggested for self-improvement programs with delayed benefits that people find challenging to follow through. It is, however, unclear when microtasking can help, and if so, how to design the microtasks taking the pricing of the program...

This paper investigates an emerging monetization mechanism for app developers – reward advertising. With reward ads, consumers have an option to view ads in exchange for a reward such as premium content. We investigate when and how an app developer should adopt reward ads as a mechanism for...

Mobile carriers used to enforce service contracts on consumers. However, recently major mobile carriers have eliminated contracts. We investigate carriers' contract and marketing strategies. We identify Expectation-Reality Discrepancy (ERD) as a key determinant. A carrier's ERD is defined as...

Reward advertising is an emerging monetization mechanism for app developers in which consumers choose to view ads in exchange for apps’ premium content. We provide the first economic analysis of reward advertising by studying the implications of offering reward ads, either by itself, or in...