Platform-run marketplaces may exploit third-party sellers' data to develop competing products, but potential for future competition can deter sellers' entry. We explore how this trade-off affects the platform's referral fee and its own entry decision. We first characterize the platform's optimal...

We provide an overview and synthesis of the literatures analyzing games in which players are connected via a network structure. We discuss, in particular, the impact of the structure of the network on individuals' behaviors. We focus on game theoretic modeling, but also include some discussion...

We develop a model of contests on networks. Each player is “connected” to a set of contests and exerts a single effort to increase the probability of winning each contest to which she is connected. We characterize equilibria under the Tullock contest success function and explore how behavior...

The objective of our study is to capture roles of product quality and network effects in the success and efficiency of network markets under strategic settings. We develop scenarios that one firm with large network effects as an incumbent that is able to commit output or not and the other firm...

By design, the Bitcoin protocol has a low throughput. The Lightning Network (LN) is a layer-two solution built to increase throughput by cryptographically securing commitments to transactions and only occasionally converting cumulative balances into on-chain transactions. LN channels enable...

This paper studies a game of attack and interception in a network where a single attacker chooses a target and a path, and each node chooses a level of protection. We show that the Nash equilibrium of the game exists and is unique. We characterize equilibrium attack paths and attack...

Compared with existing payment systems, Bitcoin’s throughput is low. Designed to address Bitcoin’s scalability challenge, the Lightning Network (LN) is a protocol allowing two parties to secure bitcoin payments and escrow holdings between them. In a lightning channel, each party commits...