nep-ind New Economics Papers
on Industrial Organization
Issue of 2017‒06‒04
four papers chosen by



  1. Patent Licensing, Entry and the Incentive to Innovate By Yair Tauman; Chang Zhao
  2. The Impact of Multi-homing in a Ride-Hailing Market By Qihong Liu; Oksana Loginova; X. Henry Wang
  3. Backward ownership, uniform pricing and entry deterrence By Hunold, Matthias
  4. The Production of Information in an Online World: Is Copy Right? By Cagé, Julia; Hervé, Nicolas; Viaud, Marie-Luce

  1. By: Yair Tauman; Chang Zhao
    Date: 2017
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nys:sunysb:17-05&r=ind
  2. By: Qihong Liu (Department of Economics, University of Oklahoma); Oksana Loginova (Department of Economics, University of Missouri); X. Henry Wang (https://economics.missouri.edu/people/wang)
    Abstract: Platforms such as Uber, Lyft and Airbnb serve two-sided markets with drivers (property owners) on one side and riders (renters) on the other side. Some agents multi-home. In the case of ride-hailing, a driver may drive for both Uber and Lyft, and a rider may use both apps and request a ride from the company that has a driver close by. In this paper, we are interested in welfare implications of multi-homing in such a market. Our model abstracts away from entry/exit by drivers and riders as well as pricing by platforms. Both drivers' and riders' surpluses are determined by the average time between a request and the actual pickup. The benchmark setting is a monopoly platform and the direct comparison is a single-homing duopoly. The former is more efficient since it has a thicker market. Next, we consider two multi-homing settings, multi-homing on the rider side and multi-homing on the driver side respectively. Relative to single-homing duopoly, we find that multi-homing on either side improves the overall welfare. However, multi-homing drivers potentially benefit themselves at the cost of single-homing drivers. In contrast, multi-homing riders benefit themselves as well as single-homing riders, representing a more equitable distribution of gains from multi-homing.
    Keywords: Ride-hailing platform, two-sided markets, network externalities, multi-homing
    JEL: D85 L12 L13
    Date: 2017–05–15
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:umc:wpaper:1707&r=ind
  3. By: Hunold, Matthias
    Abstract: Entry deterrence can occur when downstream incumbents hold non-controlling ownership shares of a supplier which is commited to charge uniform prices to all downstream firms. The ownership shares imply a rebate on the input price for the incumbents through the profit participation. Such backward ownership induces the supplier to accommodate entry by charging a low uniform price to all downstream firms in case of entry. However, just the entry-accommodating behavior reduces entry profits and thereby can lead to market foreclosure. Based on this theory, the article reviews a merger case in the financial services industry and draws conclusions for regulation and competition policy.
    Keywords: entry deterrence,foreclosure,minority shareholdings,non-controlling partial ownership,uniform pricing,vertical integration
    JEL: G34 L22 L40
    Date: 2017
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:dicedp:250&r=ind
  4. By: Cagé, Julia; Hervé, Nicolas; Viaud, Marie-Luce
    Abstract: This paper documents the extent of copying and estimates the returns to originality in online news production. We build a unique dataset combining all the online content produced by the universe of news media (newspaper, television, radio, pure online media, and a news agency) in France during the year 2013 with new micro audience data. We develop a topic detection algorithm that identifies each news event, trace the timeline of each story and study news propagation. We show that one quarter of the news stories are reproduced online in less than 4 minutes. High reactivity comes with verbatim copying. We find that only 32.6% of the online content is original. The negative impact of copying on newsgathering incentives might however be counterbalanced by reputation effects. By using media-level daily audience and article-level Facebook shares, we show that original content represents 57.8% of online news consumption. Reputation mechanisms actually appear to solve about 40% of the copyright violation problem.
    Keywords: Copyright; Facebook; Information spreading; internet; Investigative journalism; reputation
    JEL: L11 L15 L82 L86
    Date: 2017–05
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:12066&r=ind

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