This paper investigates price differences between online and offline retail channels in the EU Digital Single Market. Using price and sales data for ten household appliances product categories sold both offline and online in 21 EU countries in 2009, and correcting for product characteristics, we...

This report presents empirical evidence about the obstacles that European consumers face when trying to buy online goods and services in other EU Member States. It relies on data from a consumer survey carried out in February-March 2015 in the EU28. By comparing named websites with respondents'...

This report presents empirical evidence about the internationalisation of European online firms. After describing some characteristics that define the internationalisation of firms engaged in online activities, it mainly focuses on the obstacles that these firms face when trying to sell their...

This paper examines the economic impact of a change in retail technology - the shift from offline to online shopping - and a change in policy - measures to reduce the barriers to online trade perceived by consumers and retailers. Contrary to the prevalent micro-economic partial equilibrium...

In this paper, we present the results of a study which investigated the welfare impact of lifting geo-blocking restrictions to cross-border e-commerce in the EU, using a dataset for consumer electronics products in ten European countries for the period 2012-2105. We simulated two counterfactual...

This paper studies the effects of delivery costs on cross-border e-commerce flows in the EU. For this purpose, we use surveys carried out in 2015 on firms and consumers, to analyse the supply and demand side separately. The paper first offers some descriptive statistics on the issues of delivery...

Despite the rapidly growing volume and economic importance of data in the digital economy, the legal framework for data ownership, access and trade remains incompletely defined in the EU and elsewhere. De facto data ownership dominates and often leads to fragmentation or anti-commons problems in...

We analyse survey data to investigate the main barriers to European cross-border e-commerce. We investigate the determinants of selling online, as well as the frequency and determinants of cross-border e-commerce, and the role of barriers. Large firms, which are part of a group, are more likely...

This paper describes the different forces that shape the market structure of four different "online platform ecosystems" and the competition between them. The paper focuses on the following categories of platforms, which represent a wide scope of online activities: (i) e-commerce marketplaces;...

The aim of this paper is to explain evidence of unfair practices by online platforms towards business users, particularly SME's. First, using survey data, we show that sellers operating with four different categories of platforms multi-home (marketplaces, app stores, social networks and online...