Recent claims that online platforms have secured permanent monopolies, protected by barriers to entry from network effects and stockpiles of data, and should be the focus of intense antitrust and regulatory scrutiny, are inconsistent with the economics, technology, and history of online...

Is the rise of the Indian software industry simply another Asian state-dominated industrial growth story or is India distinctive, an economy where small technology entrepreneurs also find niches for development and can be drivers of innovation? Research has predominantly focused on the large...

We review the economics of superstars, originally developed for stars in traditional media, and discuss whether they are applicable for the (allegedly) novel phenomenon of stars in social media (influencer, micro-celebrities). Moreover, we analyse potentially new factors for creating social...

Various forms of social learning and network effects are at work on crowdfunding platforms, giving rise to informational and payoff externalities. We use novel entrepreneur-backer data to study how these externalities shape funding dynamics, within and across projects. We find that backers...

In this paper, we ask the question of the impact of the distance between backers and entrepreneurs on success of reward based crowdfunding campaigns and provide a framework to understand the association. Using a unique data set provided by the French leading platform Ulule that allows us to work...

As a form of crowdsourcing, idea competitions offer a mechanism to engage larger groups in innovation activities. While much of the literature on crowdsourcing focuses on idea competitions that cross a firm's boundaries to engage external partners, relatively little is known about how this...

We study how a pioneer of peer-to-peer rental, Airbnb, affects the local economy. Using venture capital infusions as plausibly exogenous shocks to Airbnb's expansion into a new county, we find that Airbnb expansion leads to poorer hotel performance in the local county. Meanwhile, Airbnb...

Various forms of social learning and network effects are at work on crowdfunding platforms, giving rise to informational and payoff externalities. We use novel entrepreneur-backer data to study how these externalities shape funding dynamics, within and across projects. We find that backers...

This study investigates resourcing of computer software companies that have adopted cloud computing for the development and delivery of application software. Use of this innovative technology potentially impacts firm financing because the initial infrastructure investment requirement is much...

This paper examines firms’ choices to use mobile platforms — namely iOS and Android. Using Crunchbase® data on startups seeking external funding, we find that 16 of 47 business categories are likely to use mobile platforms. 10 of these 16 exhibit no platform preferences, implying...