The literature of private provision of public goods suggests that incentive to contribute is inversely related to group size. This paper empirically tests this relationship using field data from Chinese Wikipedia, an online encyclopedia. We exploit an exogenous reduction in group size as a...

The paper analyzes and compares the investment incentives of platform and application developers for Linux and Windows. We find that the level of investment in applications is larger when the operating system is open source rather than proprietary. The comparison of the levels of investment in...

Previous research modeled academic journals as platforms connecting authors with readers in a two-sided market. This research used the same basic framework also used to study telephony, credit cards, video game consoles, etc. In this paper, we focus on a key difference between the market for...

The paper analyzes and compares the investment incentives of platform and application developers for Linux and Windows. We find that the level of investment in applications is larger when the operating system is open source rather than proprietary. The comparison of the levels of investment in...

This paper proposes a revealed preference test of network formation models. Specifically, I consider network formation models where agents are (1) strategic, (2) externalities are confined to within an agent’s k-neighborhood, where k can be varied. I show that this model can be tested...

We develop a model of dynamic platform formation under positive platform externalities. Users can switch between an incumbent and entrant platforms, switching opportunities arise stochastically and users can choose whether to accept or reject an opportunity to switch. For homogeneous users, we...

Understanding the process of software adoption is of paramount importance to software start-ups. We study a monopolistic seller’s optimal consumer network structure formation (seeding, segmentation, sequencing, and pricing strategies) under network effects. We demonstrate the importance of...

One of the most salient issues faced by platforms like newspapers and credit card issuers is that users are heterogeneous in the value they bring to other users or to the platform. We develop a model with multi-dimensional heterogeneity where a monopoly platform chooses (price or non-price)...

This paper proposes approximate variational inference methods for estimation of a strategic model of social interactions. Players interact in an exogenous network and sequentially choose a binary action. The utility of an action is a function of the choices of neighbors in the network. I prove...

The growing importance of online social networks makes it interesting to ask whether extant social capital can substitute for trust built through repeated interactions. It also provides fertile ground for researchers seeking to gain a deeper understanding of fundamental constructs of human...