Abstract Since many merchants charge consumers a single price regardless of payment method, payment card rewards programs may cause some consumers to indirectly subsidize others. From our consumer survey, we find that higher income consumers received a higher rewards rate, and from merchant...

Abstract We focus on the role of the price of basic local telephone service on broadband adoption, to determine whether and to what extent overlapping legacy telephone policies interfere with the contemporary goal of increased broadband adoption. The analysis uses nationwide quarterly...

Abstract This paper considers duopolists targeting informative messages to consumers who share information locally with their network neighbors. A monopolist targets a parsimonious set of nodes that informs all consumers either directly or by word-of-mouth. A duopolist faces a tradeoff between...

This paper investigates firms’ incentives to innovate in Next Generation Access Networks. The market is initially asymmetric because one firm owns an "old" technology. This operator or its competitor may invest in a new access network. We focus on regulation of the old technology and show that...

Abstract Using a unique data set on criminal profiles of 800 US Mafia members active in the 1950s and 1960s and on their connections within the Cosa Nostra network, we use simple network analysis techniques to document the structure and composition of the geometry of criminal ties between...

Abstract The flourishing internet-based trade motivates our model of two-sided markets with multilevel mediation, in which a seller, intermediaries at various levels and buyers are embedded in a symmetric tree. Adapting the framework of the single-unit first price auction to trees, we show, in...

We consider an unregulated incumbent who owns a broadband infrastructure and decides on how much access to provide to a potential entrant. The level of access determines the amount of investment the entrant needs to undertake to enter the market, and the intensity of post-entry competition. We...

We conduct, to our knowledge, the first cost-benefit analysis of the universal service obligation (USO) in the postal sector. Three alternatives are analysed that reduce delivery frequency and/or delivery speed, with particular emphasis on quantifying the potential loss of consumer benefits....

Abstract This paper uses both a discrete choice demand model and a direct survey method to derive robust measures of the contribution of home broadband to consumer welfare during the early years of broadband adoption by U.S. households. We estimate a demand system that distinguishes between...

Abstract We study models of the formation of citation networks in a setting where authors/firms care about their citations and are rational. The effect of these two features on the diffusion of useful ideas in a setting with complete information about past citations leads to multiplicity of...