We develop an analytical framework to investigate the competitiveimplications of personalized pricing (PP), whereby firms chargedifferent prices to different consumers based on their willingness topay. We embed PP in a model of vertical product differentiation and showhow it affects firms’...

This research explores the economic rationale behind the increasing use of software rentals in the software industry in North America. The first part uses a two period game theoretic model to analyze a monopoly's pricing strategy. The monopoly produces two versions of the software, one in each...

In many industries, Internet referral services, hosted either byindependent third-party infomediaries or by manufacturers, serve asdigitally enabled lead generators in electronic markets, directingconsumer traffic to downstream retailers in a distribution network. Thisreshapes the extended...

Piracy has been a major problem for perpetually licensed software. Usage-based licensing architecture such as pay-per-use or software-as-a-service can offer technology-based protection against piracy. We provide an analytical framework to examine the economic implications of pay-per-use versus...

Dale Carnegie once said that the sound of one’s name is the sweetest for any person. Much internet personalization acts on this mantra by trying to create an online environment where customers are greeted by name and are recommended products based on their preferences. However, no clear...

The abundance of flawed software has been identified as the main cause of the poor security of computer networks since major viruses and worms have been exploiting the vulnerabilities of such software. As an incentive mechanism for software security quality improvement, software liability has...