This paper uses tools provided by lattice theory to describe the second-degree price discrimination problem faced by a monopolist seller of a network good, and to give a complete characterization of the optimal contracts it can use. We build a general model in a discrete and a continuous type...

The internet giants – Facebook, Amazon, Apple, Microsoft, and Google – have transformed society with both positive and negative effects. The negative effects have been stark. There have been huge disruptions caused by e-commerce. More recently, subtler, but even more serious negative effects...

The power of today’s tech giants has prompted calls for changes in antitrust law and policy which, for decades, has been exceedingly permissive in merger enforcement and in constraining dominant firm conduct. Economically, the fear is that the largest digital platforms are so dominant and its...

This paper presents a model of second-degree price discrimination by a monopolistic seller who offers a menu of price-quantity pair contracts to consumers located in a social network. Network effects are local as consumers' private valuations are increasing in their friends' adoption decisions....

This paper studies the incentives for a monopolistic firm producing a good with network externalities to advertise when consumers face imperfect information and therefore must search to realize their actual willingness to pay for the good. A firm may disclose market information through...

We provide a canonical and tractable model of a trade platform enabling buyers and sellers to transact. The platform charges a percentage fee on third-party product sales and decides whether to be "hybrid", like Amazon, by selling its own product. It thereby controls the number of differentiated...

Switching costs and network effects bind customers to vendors if products are incompatible, locking customers or even markets in to early choices. Lock-in hinders customers from changing suppliers in response to (predictable or unpredictable) changes in efficiency, and gives vendors lucrative ex...

Switching costs and network effects bind customers to vendors if products are incompatible, locking customers or even markets in to early choices. Lock-in hinders customers from changing suppliers in response to (predictable or unpredictable) changes in efficiency, and gives vendors lucrative ex...

We present a model of dynamic monopoly pricing for a good that displays network effects. In contrast with the standard notion of a rational-expectations equilibrium, we model consumers as boundedly rational, and unable either to pay immediate attention to each price change, or to make accurate...