Policy makers are increasingly concerned about the combination of market power and massive data collection in digital markets. This concern is fueled by the theoretical prediction that more market power causes firms to collect ever more data from their users. We investigate the relationship...

This report examines the competitive effects of Hybrid Mobile Network Operators (HMNOs) — mobile virtual network operators that rely in large part on self-deployed facilities — on the market for mobile wireless services and recommends that the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) broaden...

Third-party tracking, the collection and sharing of behavioural data about individuals, is a significant and ubiquitous privacy threat in mobile apps. The EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) was introduced in 2018 to protect personal data better, but there exists, thus far, limited...

This paper studies how restricting data exchange between firms affects market competition in the app economy. The identification exploits iOS's privacy policy update, which limits apps from tracking users across other apps using identifiers. We find that the iOS update reduces startup app...

The mobile app economy comprises two distinct platform markets through which app developers make revenue: app platform and ad platform markets. App sales are facilitated by app platforms, whereas advertising matching is intermediated by ad platforms. Cross-market platform competition exists,...