Seasonal influenza outbreaks and pandemics of new strains of the influenza virus affect humans around the globe. However, traditional systems for measuring the spread of flu infections deliver results with one or two weeks delay. Recent research suggests that data on queries made to the search...

Search engines enable advertisers to target consumers based on the query they have entered. In a framework in which consumers search sequentially after having entered a query, I show that targeting reduces search costs, improves matches and intensifies price competition. However, a...

The rising popularity and utilization of the Internet presents unprecedented opportunities for policy evaluation. Using data provided by Google Trends, I estimate the impacts of medical and recreational marijuana legalization on online information seeking. Search terms entered into Google Trends...

Standard search models assume that consumers actively decide on the order, identity, and number of products they search. We document that online, a large fraction of searches happen in a more passive manner, with consumers merely reacting to online advertisements that do not allow them to choose...

The paper aims to contribute to the reflection on both the role that personal data has acquired in the mostly dominant business models of the digital economy and how this is likely to pose substantive challenges to EU competition law. After sixty years since its foundation, getting an exhaustive...

Blockchain technology is firmly established in the public awareness as a revolutionary new technology underpinning cryptocurrency. However, its potential applications can be found across sectors and industries in providing a novel way of producing coordination necessary to transact online,...

Machine learning, or as it is also called automated learning, is a special subfield of scientific information technologies. The name "machine learning" refers to the automated detection of meaningful patterns in large data sets. Machine learning is gaining importance in many different areas of...

We develop a duopoly model with advertising supported platforms and analyze incentives of a superior firm to license its advanced technologies to an inferior rival. We highlight the role of two technologies characteristic for media platforms: The technology to produce content and to place...