Abstract The protection of financial personal data has become a major concern for Internet users in the digital economy. This paper investigates whether the consumers’ use of non-bank payment instruments that preserve financial privacy from banks and relatives may increase their online...

Abstract We study the impact of net neutrality on the content market with endogenous product differentiation. We show that when the Internet service provider is allowed to offer different connection qualities to content providers, it has incentives to favor contents that have a broader market...

Abstract In recent years, regulators in various parts of the world have capped interchange fees on debit and credit cards. The justification for the caps rests to a large extent on the argument that these cards have, for certain merchants, become must-take cards rather than “wanna-take...

Abstract We consider a software vendor first selling a monopoly platform and then an application running on this platform. He may face competition by an entrant in the applications market. The platform monopolist can benefit from competition for three reasons. First, his profits from the...

Abstract We propose a model of Bertrand competition in which consumers choose firms based on prices and qualities. Service quality depends on congestion, which is a function of capacity and output. We first present theoretical properties of the model. Next, we calibrate the model to the wireless...

Abstract Much of the literature on airline cooperation focuses on the price effects of cooperation. A key contribution of our paper is to empirically examine the product quality effects of airline cooperation. Two common types of cooperation among airlines involve international alliances and...

Abstract We analyze the impact of three controversial pipeline projects on the power structure in the Eurasian network for natural gas. Two pipelines, “Nord Stream” and “South Stream,” allow Russian gas to bypass transit countries, Ukraine and Belarus. The third project, “Nabucco,”...

Abstract We provide a structured overview of the quantitative research on the economic impacts of broadband internet. Differentiating between wireline and wireless technologies as well as broadband availability and broadband adoption, respectively, we review studies investigating the impacts on...

Abstract Since the 1980s, developing countries started to adopt telecom reforms due to pressures from international institutions. However, Middle East and North African (MENA) countries lagged in adopting such reforms. Even after introducing telecom reforms in MENA region beginning in 1995, not...