This research explores the economic rationale behind the increasing use of software rentals in the software industry in North America. The first part uses a two period game theoretic model to analyze a monopoly's pricing strategy. The monopoly produces two versions of the software, one in each...

We develop an analytical framework to investigate the competitiveimplications of personalized pricing (PP), whereby firms chargedifferent prices to different consumers based on their willingness topay. We embed PP in a model of vertical product differentiation and showhow it affects firms’...

The merger of distributed object technology, agent systems and electronic commerce enables a new generation of useful information services. With the advent of interoperable information services, markets featuring software agents as information service/product providers can be created. Meta...

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This paper analyzes electronic marketplaces with different ownership structures: biased marketplaces and neutral marketplaces. Biased marketplaces can be either buyer-owned or supplier-owned, whereas neutral marketplaces are owned by independent third parties. We develop a single-period model,...