It has been conjectured that the peer-based recommendations associated with electronic commerce lead to a redistribution of demand from popular products or "blockbusters" to less popular or "niche" products, and that electronic markets will therefore be characterized by a "long tail" of demand...

We study how firm boundaries are affected by the reduction in search costs when business-to-business electronic markets are adopted. Our paper analyzes a multi-tier industry in which upstream parts suppliers incur procurement search costs, and downstream manufacturers incur incentive contracting...

We develop and analyze a model of pricing for digital products with discontinuous supply functions. This characterizes a number of information technology-based products and services for which variable increases in demand are fulfilled by the addition of "blocks" of computing or network...

This paper presents a model of local network effects in which agents connected in a social network each value adoption by a heterogeneous subset of others, and have incomplete information about the structure and strength of adoption complementarities between all other agents. I show that the...

This paper presents a model of price screening for goods with network effects, by a monopoly seller, and by an entry-deterring monopolist. These products are used in variable quantities by heterogeneous customers, the magnitude of network effects is influenced by gross consumption, rather than...