This paper shows that two related aspects of attention platforms are important for the sound economic analysis of public policy including antitrust: First, attention platforms generate valuable content. Even though people often don't pay for content, we know from revealed preference that content...

The World Wide Web (“WWW”) is a dominant force in the lives of many. It provides access to a range of services and information from email access to shopping to social media to instant information on search engines like Google. For most persons using the WWW, this is all that there is to the...

We model the potential for a company bundling high search cost information goods to obtain an advantage over conventional individual sales. Using the streaming video industry as an example, we model the search costs associated with films. We find that bundling services can increase a user's...

The American corporate graveyard is littered with prior darlings of Wall Street and pillars of the New York Stock Exchange, such as Kodak and Polaroid (both photography pioneers). More recently, other businesses and entire industries that were once household names have similarly experienced...

In a short period of time virtual currencies have gained significant traction and become an economic reality, with Bitcoin being the most dominant among over 500 virtual currencies. Bitcoin and other virtual currencies present a particularly difficult and unique jurisdictional challenge to...

During 2013, the U.S. Treasury Department evoked the first use of the 2001 Patriot Act to exclude virtual currency provider Liberty Reserve from the U.S. financial system. This article will discuss: the regulation of virtual currencies; cybercrimes and payment systems; darknets, Tor and the...

By now, almost without exception, every business has an internet presence, and is likely engaged in e-commerce. What are the major risks perceived by those engaged in e-commerce and electronic payment systems? What potential risks, if they become reality, may cause substantial increases in...

Watching television is the most time-consuming human activity besides work but its role for individual well-being is unclear. Negative consequences portrayed in the literature raise the question whether this popular pastime constitutes an economic good or bad, and hence serves as a prime example...

In 2018, YouTube began releasing click-through rates (CTR) data to its video creators. Since 2012, YouTube has emphasized how it favors watch time over clicks in its recommendations to viewers. This is the first academic study employing that data to test what matters more for views on YouTube....

The diffusion of social media coincided with a worsening of mental health conditions among adolescents and young adults in the United States, giving rise to speculation that social media might be detrimental to mental health. In this paper, we provide quasi-experimental estimates of the impact...