The effect on the household consumption price index from possible sources of error in capturing digital products depends on the weight of the affected products. To calculate upper bounds for this effect, we apply weights based on the average structure of household consumption in OECD countries...

This study investigates the rationale for issuing complex securities to retail investors. We focus on a large market of investment products targeted exclusively at households: retail structured products in Europe. We develop an economic measure of product complexity in this market via a text...

IPTS recently acquired a consumer internet clickstream database containing the full set of annual (2011) clickstream records for about 25.000 internet users in the five largest EU economies (UK, Germany, France, Italy and Spain). It contains time spend on each webpage and socio-economic...

This paper examines the digital divide in internet use in general and whether there may be digital divides in internet use for specific purposes (leisure, improving human capital and obtaining goods and services). It uses a unique dataset which covers the entire clickstream of almost 20,000...

Several studies have examined the market value of paid-for internet services and internet access. This paper estimates the value of leisure time spent online for which the consumer pays no monetary price and which has become increasingly important as a leisure activity. We apply a methodology...

It is often assumed that consumers benefit from the internet because it offers a "long tail" with more variety of products to choose from. However, search costs may block the long tail effect and result in the dominance of superstars. This paper examines the variety hypothesis in the entire...

This report presents empirical evidence about the obstacles that European consumers face when trying to buy online goods and services in other EU Member States. It relies on data from a consumer survey carried out in February-March 2015 in the EU28. By comparing named websites with respondents'...

In this paper, we present the results of a study which investigated the welfare impact of lifting geo-blocking restrictions to cross-border e-commerce in the EU, using a dataset for consumer electronics products in ten European countries for the period 2012-2105. We simulated two counterfactual...

This paper studies the effects of delivery costs on cross-border e-commerce flows in the EU. For this purpose, we use surveys carried out in 2015 on firms and consumers, to analyse the supply and demand side separately. The paper first offers some descriptive statistics on the issues of delivery...

A cross-border e-commerce Mystery Shopping Survey conducted in 2015, finds that the practice of erecting virtual barriers is still common in cross-border e-commerce within the EU, as it was in 2009. Electrical appliances, electronics and computer games are particularly difficult to buy online...