Prior to the arrival of digital car data, car manufacturers had already partly foreclosed the maintenance market via franchising contracts with a network of exclusive official dealers. EU regulation endorsed this foreclosure but mandated access to maintenance data for independent service...

This report selectively draws on the systematic review of a large set of data sources, which is presented elsewhere, and comprises 430 secondary sources. The report also provides a critical overview of key analytical, empirical, and normative dimensions of the ‘sharing economy'. It reviews...

This paper 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...

This paper examines the impact of one transmission channel for the economic effects of a shift from offline to online consumption: cross-border trade costs. We use data on cross-border e-commerce between EU Member States to estimate the implied cross-border trade cost reduction when consumers...

Between 2009 and 2012 the percentage of online consumers in the EU who made online purchases in another EU Member State increased from 8 to 11 percent, below the target of 20 percent put forward in the EU Digital Agenda. Both, subjective perceptions on the consumer side or objective barriers on...

This paper contains an overview of the relevant economic research literature on the digital transformation of news markets and the impact on the quality of news. It compares various definitions of fake news, including false news and other types of disinformation and finds that there is no...

This paper starts with some basic economic characteristics of data that distinguish them from ordinary goods and services, including non-excludability and non-rivalry, economies of scope in data re-use and aggregation, the social value of data and their role in generating network effects. It...

The arrival of digital data in agriculture opens the possibility to realise productivity gainsthrough precision farming. It also raises questions about the distribution of these gainsbetween farmers and agricultural service providers. Farmers’ control of the data is oftenperceived as a means...

Digital platforms facilitate interactions between consumers and merchants that allow collection of profiling information, which drives innovation and welfare. Private incentives, however, lead to information asymmetries resulting in market failures both on-platform, among merchants, and...

The arrival of digital data in agriculture opens the possibility to realize productivity gains through precision farming. It also raises questions about the distribution of these gains between farmers and agricultural service providers. Farmers’ control of the data is often perceived as a...