This paper considers duopolistic firms targeting informative messages to consumers who share information locally with their neighbors in the network graph. A monopolist targets efficiently by sending messages to a parsimonious set of nodes that leave the whole population informed either directly...

Referral rewards programs are traditionally argued to be valuable in fostering word-of-mouth communication. However, they may also help to mitigate the coordination problem in the adoption of a new product that displays network externalities in consumption, by insuring early adopters against the...

Upstream players produce design ideas and downstream players select among these ideas to develop finished products. Design diversity is valuable at the upstream stage and coordination is valuable at the downstream stage, in the sense that this maximizes the sum of payoffs to all players....

We consider a spillover externality in the use of information. When a person consumes an information source, she enjoys private benefit but also creates social value. Her use of the source enhances society's understanding of it, which is `in the air' and freely accessible by others, but which...

I consider a repeated trust game played between a group of insiders, arranged in a network representing their lines of communication, and a single outsider. Insiders follow a local punishment rule, shunning the outsider if it has cheated them or a neighbor. The object of interest is that the...

I consider a repeated trust game played between a group of insiders, arranged in a network representing their lines of communication, and a single outsider. Insiders follow a local punishment rule, shunning the outsider if it has cheated them or a neighbor. The object of interest is that the...

This paper models how regulatory attempts to protect the privacy of consumers' data affect the competitive structure of data-intensive industries. Our results suggest that the commonly used consent-based approach may disproportionately benefit firms that offer a larger scope of services....