We analyze platform competition where user data is collected to improve adtargeting. Considering that users incur privacy costs, we show that the equilibrium level of data provision is distorted and can be inefficiently high or low: if overall competition is weak or if targeting benefits are...

This chapter focuses on the economic mechanisms at work in recent models of advertising finance in media markets developed around the concept of two-sided markets. The objective is to highlight new and original insights from this approach, and to clarify the conceptual aspects. The chapter first...

It is crucial for content providers (CPs) to appear prominently on dominant online platforms in order to attract consumer demand. Platforms often offer content providers prominence in return for a monetary compensation (e.g., a sponsored listing). We consider the case where CPs can pay the...

In this paper a network model is developed in which three players sequentially choose their strategies. In the first stage, a profit–maximizing network firm chooses the price and thus the size of the network. In the second stage the consumers decide whether to join in the network or not. In...

Internet users often surf to multiple websites in order to accomplish a single task. When this happens, do these different sites face the right incentives when choosing their advertising policies? We build a model showing that websites are prone both to over-advertise and to misallocate ads...

In this paper, we estimate a differentiated products demand model to ask three questions regarding the introduction of e-commerce. First, we ask whether the online distribution channel has increased total sales, or only diverted sales from traditional channels. We find that there is some market...

This paper identifies substantial flaws in how U.S. government agencies and courts assess the impact of proposed mergers by firms using broadband networks to reach consumers. Based on current market definitions, consumer impact assessments and economic doctrine, antitrust enforcement agencies...

Platforms often display their products ahead of third-party products in search. Is this due to consumers preferring platform-owned products or platforms engaging in self-preferencing by biasing search towards their own products? What are the welfare implications? I develop a structural model of...