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on Marketing |
| By: | Georgios Alaveras (European Commission – JRC); Estrella Gomez-Herrera (European Commission – JRC); Bertin Martens (European Commission – JRC) |
| Abstract: | This study measures the extent of cross-border geo-blocking and the impact on product availability and pricing for three non-audio-visual digital media products (music, e-books and games) in the EU Digital Single Market. We find that cross-border access to online media stores is generally blocked for the products and distributors surveyed in this study, though it can usually be circumvented. By contrast, cross-border availability is high, reaching around 98.6% for e-books on Amazon, 90% for downloadable music on iTunes, and 81.1% and 90.5% respectively for PS3 and PS4 PlayStation games. We could not directly verify cross-border availability of music in streaming services but a small sample test suggests that it could reach around 96% on Spotify. We find that the frequency of cross-country price differentiation is limited for games in the Sony PlayStation stores (less than 4%) but higher for downloadable music in the Apple iTunes stores (11.5%) and Amazon e-book stores (26%). Much of this price differentiation is driven by exchange rates and rounding off prices in country stores not denominated in Euro. In music, price discrimination is used mostly to extract higher prices from high-income consumers and for more popular songs with a lower price elasticity of demand. Subscription prices for main music streaming services are strongly correlated with country per capita income levels. Geographical market differentiation and geo-blocking in digital media is often attributed to the territoriality of the copyright management regime. In most cases rights holders are in a position to issue multi-territorial licenses. For commercial reasons however they may prefer to exercise their rights on a territorial basis. The welfare effect of geo-blocking on sellers can be safely assumed to be positive otherwise sellers would not apply this commercial strategy. The impact on consumer welfare is a-priori ambiguous. Geo-blocking reduces the extent of product variety available to consumers. Whether it increases or reduces consumer welfare is an empirical question. The data required to empirically estimate the impact of (lifting) geo-blocking restrictions on welfare are held by the private platform operators. A future assessment can only be made if the required data on product prices and sales are made available to independent researchers. Lifting geo-blocking restrictions will induce price arbitrage between country markets. That may put pressure on sellers to reduce price differentiation and push some prices up, others down. The price response of sellers is hard to predict and may have repercussions not only on downstream consumers but also on upstream parts of the supply chain. Price convergence is unlikely to be perfect and some differentiation may continue to exist because trade costs between country stores may not fall to zero (exchange rates, means of payment, linguistic trade barriers, etc.). |
| Keywords: | digital single market, copyright, digital media, audio-visual, music, e-books, online games |
| JEL: | D23 K11 |
| Date: | 2017–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ipt:decwpa:2017-02&r=mkt |
| By: | Shinsuke Ikeda; Takeshi Ojima |
| Abstract: | We describe consumers’ dynamic decision-making under limited self-control, emphasizing the fatiguing nature of self-regulation. The temptation theory is extended in a two-good setting with tempting and non-tempting goods, where self-regulation in moderating tempting good consumption depreciates mental capital (willpower). The resulting non-homothetic feature of consumer preferences helps describe self-regulatory behavior in such an empirically relevant way that it depends on the nature of the tempting good (luxury or inferior) and on consumer wealthiness. First, richer consumers are more selfindulgent and impatient in consuming tempting luxuries, whereas less so in consuming tempting inferiors: marginal impatience is increasing in wealth for high-end brand wine whereas decreasing for junk foods. Second, self-control fatigue weakens implied patience for tempting good consumption. Third, upon a stressful shock, with the resulting increasing scarcity of willpower, self-indulgence and impatience for tempting good consumption increase over time. Fourth, without substantial difference in wealth holdings, naive consumers, unaware of the willpower constraint, display weaker self-control in the long run than the sophisticated consumers do. |
| JEL: | D90 E21 |
| Date: | 2017–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:vie:viennp:1704&r=mkt |
| By: | Frédéric Marty (Observatoire français des conjonctures économiques) |
| Abstract: | Les algorithmes de prix mis en œuvre par des firmes concurrentes peuvent constituer le support de collusions. Les ressources offertes par le Big Data, les possibilités d’ajustement des prix en temps réel et l’analyse prédictive peuvent permettre d’atteindre rapidement et de maintenir durablement des équilibres de collusion tacite. Le recours à l’intelligence artificielle pose un enjeu spécifique en ce sens que l’algorithme peut découvrir de lui-même l’intérêt d’un accord tacite de non-agression et que l’analyse de son processus décisionnel est particulièrement difficile. Ce faisant la sanction de l’entente sur la base du droit des pratiques anticoncurrentielles ne va pas de soi. L’article explore donc les voies de régulation possibles, que celles-ci passent par des audits ou par l’activation de règles de responsabilité. |
| Keywords: | Algorithmes des prix; Intelligence artificielle; Collusion tacite; Règles de responsabilité; Régles de concurrence |
| JEL: | K21 K23 L41 |
| Date: | 2017–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:spo:wpmain:info:hdl:2441/4qghag40qc8g0r254fpopgv74r&r=mkt |
| By: | Cristina Alaimo; Jannis Kallinikos |
| Abstract: | We conceive social media platforms as sociotechnical entities that variously shape user platform involvement and participation. Such shaping develops along three fundamental data operations that we subsume under the terms of encoding, aggregation, and computation. Encoding entails the engineering of user platform participation along narrow and standardized activity types (e.g., tagging, liking, sharing, following). This heavily scripted platform participation serves as the basis for the procurement of discrete and calculable data tokens that are possible to aggregate and, subsequently, compute in a variety of ways. We expose these operations by investigating a social media platform for shopping. We contribute to the current debate on social media and digital platforms by describing social media as posttransactional spaces that are predominantly concerned with charting and profiling the online predispositions, habits, and opinions of their user base. Such an orientation sets social media platforms apart from other forms of mediating online interaction. In social media, we claim, platform participation is driven toward an endless online conversation that delivers the data footprint through which a computed sociality is made the source of value creation and monetization. |
| Keywords: | categories; classification; data infrastructures; posttransactional spaces; social data; sociality; social interaction; social media platforms |
| JEL: | L91 L96 |
| Date: | 2017–06–02 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ehl:lserod:81432&r=mkt |