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Empirical Analysis of Network Effects in Nonlinear Pricing Data

Author

Listed:
  • Liang Chen
  • Yao Luo
Abstract
Network effects, i.e., an agent's utility may depend on other agents' choices, appear in many contracting situations. Empirically assessing them faces two challenges: an endogeneity problem in contract choice and a reflection problem in network effects. This paper proposes a nonparametric approach to tackle both challenges by exploiting restriction conditions from both demand and supply sides. We illustrate our methodology in the yellow pages advertising industry. Using advertising purchases and nonlinear price schedules from seven directories in Toronto, we find positive network effects, which account for a substantial portion of the publisher's profit and businesses' surpluses. We finally conduct counterfactuals to assess the overall and distributional welfare effects of the nonlinear pricing scheme relative to an alternative linear pricing scheme with and without network effects.

Suggested Citation

  • Liang Chen & Yao Luo, 2023. "Empirical Analysis of Network Effects in Nonlinear Pricing Data," Working Papers tecipa-758, University of Toronto, Department of Economics.
    • Handle: RePEc:tor:tecipa:tecipa-758
    as

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    References listed on IDEAS

    as
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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Identification; Asymmetric Information; Network Effects; Nonlinear Pricing;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • L11 - Industrial Organization - - Market Structure, Firm Strategy, and Market Performance - - - Production, Pricing, and Market Structure; Size Distribution of Firms
    • L12 - Industrial Organization - - Market Structure, Firm Strategy, and Market Performance - - - Monopoly; Monopolization Strategies
    • L13 - Industrial Organization - - Market Structure, Firm Strategy, and Market Performance - - - Oligopoly and Other Imperfect Markets

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