48 research outputs found

    The Effect of Content on Global Internet Adoption and the Global “Digital Divide”

    Get PDF
    A country’s human capital and economic productivity increasingly depend on the Internet due to its expanding role in providing information and communications. This has prompted a search for ways to increase Internet adoption and narrow its disparity across countries – the global “digital divide.” Previous work has focused on demographic, economic, and infrastructure determinants of Internet access difficult to change in the short run. Internet content increases adoption and can be changed more quickly; however, the magnitude of its impact and therefore its effectiveness as a policy and strategy tool is previously unknown. Quantifying content’s role is challenging because of feedback (network effects) between content and adoption: more content stimulates adoption which in turn increases the incentive to create content. We develop a methodology to overcome this endogeneity problem. We find a statistically and economically significant effect, implying that policies promoting content creation can substantially increase adoption. Because it is ubiquitous, Internet content is also useful to affect social change across countries. Content has a greater effect on adoption in countries with more disparate languages, making it a useful tool to overcome linguistic isolation. Our results offer guidance for policy makers on country characteristics that influence adoption’s responsiveness to content and for Internet firms on where to expand internationally and how to quantify content investments.Internet, technology adoption, economic development, two-sided markets, network effects, technology diffusion, language, content

    Pricing of Complementary Goods and Network Effects*

    Get PDF
    We discuss the case of a monopolist of a base good in the presence of a complementary good provided either by it or by another firm. We assess and calibrate the extent of the influence on the profits from the base good that is created by the existence of the complementary good, i.e., the extent of the network effect. We establish an equivalence between a model of a base and a complementary good and a reduced-form model of the base good in which network effects are assumed in the consumers’ utility functions as a surrogate for the presence of direct or indirect network effects, such as complementary goods produced by other firms. We also assess and calibrate the influence on profits of the intensity of network effects and quality improvements in both goods. We evaluate the incentive that a monopolist of the base good has to improve its quality rather than that of the complementary good under different market structures. Finally, based on our results, we discuss a possible explanation of the fact that Microsoft Office has a significantly higher price than Microsoft Windows although both products have comparable market shares.calibration; monopoly; network effects; complementary goods; software; Microsoft

    Quantifying the Benefits of Entry into Local Phone Service,

    Get PDF
    See http://www.netinst.org/NET_Working_Papers.html #46

    手机打车软件能帮乘客打车吗?

    Get PDF
    V. Brian Viard 获美国芝加哥大学商学院商业经济学博士学位,现为长江商学院战略与经济学副教授。为了应对“打车难”的问题,近来一批移动应用服务(mobile apps)应运而生、不断涌现:“滴滴打车” 、“摇摇招车”、“快的打车”、“大黄蜂打车”等。这些打车软件虽有细微差异,但它们的工作原理类似:如果你要打车,点击应用的图标;程序加载时,会利用手机的 GPS 系统确定你的位置。程序将这个位置作为你的起点,除非你重新定位或是输入更详细的位置信息。 接着,输入你的目的地。这些打车软件很方便,即使附近一辆出租车也没有,它们也能帮你叫到出租车。这些新移动应用服务是否合法,仍是个悬而未决的问题

    北京出租车,如何才能不空驶?

    Get PDF
    几个星期前,我站在北京一个地铁站外,不断地朝出租车招手,迫切希望能为从外 地来访的友人叫到一辆。 苦等了半个小时后,我依然呆在原地,胳膊已经酸痛,却未能 打到车,甚至有几辆空车也不愿意停下来。最后我们还是不得不选择坐地铁,尽管花时 更

    解决产能过剩问题:竞赛尚未开始

    Get PDF
    V. Brian Viard 获美国芝加哥大学商学院商业经济学博士学位,现为长江商学院战略与经济学副教授, 他的电子信箱是 [email protected]。他为本刊开设的专栏“解读无形之手” 将定期发表他对中国社会日常生活以及商业运行的经济学解读。本文原文来自 http://knowledge.ckgsb.edu.cn/2013/10/17/china/excess- capacity-the-race-yet-run, 由厦门大学经济学院伍潜娜硕士研究生翻译、傅十和校译。减少工业过剩产能的责任是否应由政府来承担?还是最好将其交给市场力量来解决? 试想一下这种情形:你必须组建一支田径队,但却不准通过比赛来判断候选队员的速度。最近,中国的工业和信息化部(工信部)就承担起这样一项艰巨的任务。工信部宣布,它将减少一些行业的过剩产能,其方式是关闭效率最低的企业。这个目标很有意义,至少可从两方面看出。首先,让更有效率的企业取代低效率的企业无疑是件好事,从全社会的角度来讲,这会使同样的产出只需更低的总成本。其次,这些行业基本上是高污染行业,而那些低效率的企业同时也是排污最多的企业

    当银行利息变成一篮子蔬菜时

    Get PDF
    V. Brian Viard 获美国芝加哥大学商学院商业经济学博士学位,现为长江商学院战略与经济学副教授。在货币诞生之前,人们往往通过物物交换的方式进行交易。例如,如果一个人想要一头牛,而他有一只不想要的鸡,那么他就可以寻找另外一个正好有着相反需要(即有一头不想要的牛,但想要一只鸡)的人进行交换。或者,他也可以将鸡换成第三种物品,再用此来换牛。货币的诞生使得买卖双方相互寻找对方的这一复杂的物物交换体系消失。因为货币带来了交易效率的巨大提高,现代经济体都经常使用货币作为交易的媒介

    “武钢”为何进入养猪业?

    Get PDF
    近日,一则有趣的新闻引起了我的思考。坐落于武汉的一家钢铁企业——武汉钢铁集团(武钢)日前对外宣布,计划投资建立一个年产万头的养猪场。若是一个普通企业也就罢了,然而,武钢是新中国成立后由国家投资建设的第一个特大型钢铁联合企业。人们不禁要问:此举能使武钢从与其本行业完全不相关的多元化产业中获得什么呢?事实上,在跨行业经营问题上,经济学家们早已积累了很多重要的实证研究证据。这些证据表明(至少在美国),涉足不相关产业的多元化经营会损害企业的自身价值,即所谓的“多元化折价”(diversification discount):产业多元化程度非常高的企业其股票的收益率通常较低 (Besanko等, 2007, Chapter 5; Lang 和 Stulz, 1994)。原作者单位: 长江商学

    中国大学良好教育的价格——取决于你的兴趣

    Get PDF
    V.Brian Viard 获美国芝加哥大学商学院商业经济学博士学位,现为长江商学院战略与经济学副教授。专业选择将如何影响你受教育的成本?对于就读于中国大学的学生而言,专业间的价格歧视是一个事关教育成本的问题
    corecore