We extend the theory of tax incidence under Cournot-Nash oligopolistic competition to study the effects of an ad valorem sales tax on Web services (so-called Web Tax) that are provided free of charge to users, and produce advertising space sold to businesses. Ads are more valuable to advertisers...

This paper takes stock of recent developments related to online consumer ratings and reviews and their effects on consumer behaviour. It provides an overview of key consumer benefits and risks associated with user-generated feedback, and identifies consumer policy challenges, including...

This report presents evidence on the relationship between online platforms and businesses using these platforms to reach consumers or conduct their operations. First, we review the literature on vertical relationships both from a classic approach and from a multi-sided market perspective....

This report provides an overview of the relevant economic research literature on platforms or multi-sided online markets. It discusses platforms from a regulatory policy angle, including potential market failures in platforms, the extent of self-regulation and possible regulatory responses...

The aim of this paper is to explain evidence of unfair practices by online platforms towards business users, particularly SME's. First, using survey data, we show that sellers operating with four different categories of platforms multi-home (marketplaces, app stores, social networks and online...

Computational methods to gauge investor sentiment from commonly used online data sources that rely on machine learning classifiers and lexicons have shown considerable promise, but suffer from measurement and classification errors. In our work, we develop a simple, direct and unambiguous...

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'...

Changes in the sentiment of Dutch public social media messages were compared with changes in monthly consumer confidence over a period of three-and-a-half years, revealing that both were highly correlated (up to r = 0.9) and that both series cointegrated. This phenomenon is predominantly...