Self-preferencing, Quality Provision, and Welfare in Mobile Application Markets

Arbeitspapier

Platforms often display their products ahead of third-party products in search. Is this due to consumers preferring platform-owned products or platforms engaging in self-preferencing by biasing search towards their own products? What are the welfare implications? I develop a structural model of mobile application markets to identify self-preferencing and quantify its welfare effects, taking into account third-party developers' quality adjustment. A new dataset on app downloads, prices, characteristics, and search rankings is used to estimate the model. Estimates indicate self-preferencing. Simulations show higher consumer welfare and third-party profits without self-preferencing.

Angaben zum Objekt

• Sprache: Englisch

Verweise und Beziehungen

• Erschienen in: Series: Discussion Paper ; No. 434

Klassifikation und Themen

• Klassifikation: Wirtschaft ; Consumer Economics: Empirical Analysis ; Search; Learning; Information and Knowledge; Communication; Belief; Unawareness ; Oligopoly and Other Imperfect Markets ; Information and Internet Services; Computer Software
• Thema: competition policy ; platform design ; consumer search ; endogenous product choice

Beteiligte, Orts- und Zeitangaben

• Ereignis: Geistige Schöpfung
• (wer): Teng, Xuan
• Ereignis: Veröffentlichung
• (wer): Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München und Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Collaborative Research Center Transregio 190 - Rationality and Competition
• (wo): München und Berlin
• (wann): 2023

Weitere Informationen

• Handle: http://hdl.handle.net/10419/282126
• Letzte Aktualisierung: 20.09.2024, 08:21 MESZ