We develop a duopoly model with advertising supported platforms and analyze incentives of a superior firm to license its advanced technologies to an inferior rival. We highlight the role of two technologies characteristic for media platforms: The technology to produce content and to place...

We investigate how firms' incentives to acquire customer data for targeted offers depend on its quality. A two-dimensional Hotelling model is proposed where consumers are heterogeneous both with respect to their locations and transportation cost parameters (flexibility). Firms have perfect data...

It is increasingly observable that competitors in different industries share customer data, which can be used for targeted pricing. We propose a modified Hotelling model with two-dimensional consumer heterogeneity to analyze the incentives for such sharing and its ensuing welfare effects. We...

We analyze Bertrand duopoly competition in markets with network effects and consumer switching costs. Depending on the ratio of switching costs to network effects, our modelerates four different market patterns: monopolization and market sharing which can be either monotone or alternating. A...

We examine a technology adoption game with network effects in which coordination on technology A and technology B constitute a Nash equilibrium. Coordination on technology B is assumed to be payoff-dominant. We define a technology's critical mass as the minimum share of users necessary to make...

We analyze the role of consumer expectations in a Hotelling model of price competition when products exhibit network effects. Expectations can be strong (stubborn), weak (price-sensitive) or partially stubborn (a mix of weak and strong). As a rule, the price-sensitivity of demand declines when...

We analyze how consumer myopia influences investment incentives into a technology that enables firms to track consumers' purchases and make targeted offers based on their preferences. In a two-period Hotelling setup firms may invest in customer-tracking technology. If a firm acquires the...

This paper analyzes vertical integration incentives in a bilaterally duopolistic industry where upstream producers bargain with downstream retailers on terms of supply. In the applied framework integration does not affect the total output produced, but it affects the distribution of rents among...