Superstars and the Long Tail: The impact of technology on market structure in media industries

Technological change is transforming media industries. Digitization lowers the cost of recording, storage, reproduction and distribution, while computer-based editing facilitates higher quality and special effects. With electronic distribution, a vast range of content can be made available to consumers at little cost. Meanwhile, the distribution of industry production and sales appears to be shifting: the late 20th century was the era of the �hit parade�, but in the 21st attention has shifted to the �long tail�. This paper develops a free entry model of differentiated products with endogenous quality and heterogeneous types to examine the implications of technological change for market structure, quality, and the distribution of firms in media industries. This framework can be used to assess current and future trends in media industries.

Sleeping Patents and Computsory Licensing: An Options Analysis.

Why should a firm wish to create a new technology that it will leave unexploited for some time? Sleeping patents have long been perceived as anticompetitive devices, used by dominant firms to block entry into their market. In a real options framework with both economic and technological uncertainty, we show that a sleeping patent may arise as the result of optimal forward-looking behavior, in the absence of any anticompetitive motive. We also consider the effect of possible measures to enforce the development of sleeping patents and find that these are likely to harm incentives for firms to engage in research.RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT ; TECHNOLOGY ; MARKET

Can greater uncertainty hasten investment?

This paper examines irreversible investment in a project with uncertain returns, when there is an advantage to being the first to invest and externalities to investing when others also do so. We show that in a duopoly, greater uncertainty can actually hasten rather than delay investment, contrary to the usual outcome, due its effect on the equilibrium of the timing game between the players. In the presence of positive externalities, greater uncertainty can raise the leader's value more than the follower's; pre-emption then entails that the leader must act sooner. A switch in the pattern of equilibrium investment as uncertainty increases is also possible, which may hasten investment. These findings reinforce the importance of extending real options analysis to include strategic interactions and externalities between players

Plug flow versus mixed flow modelling of a pressure screen

The plug flow and mixed flow methods of modelling a screen are analysed in terms of screen length, internal fibre concentration and screen separation performance. Experimental data for consistency changes in screens of narrow length are incorporated into the analysis and from this data an equation for determining the real thickening in the screen and the fibre concentration profile along the screen is derived. Lastly, thicken equations are related to common equations used for modelling overall screen performance. The work directly links screen performance equations to passage ratio measurements from narrow length screen sections

Networks, Options and Preemption.

This paper examines the irreversible adoption of a technology whose returns are uncertain, when there is an advantage to being the first adopter, but a network advantage to adopting when others also do so. Two patterns of adoption emerge: sequential, in which the leader aggressively preempts its rival; and a more accommodating outcome in which the firms adopt simultaneously.TECHNOLOGY ; NETWORK ANALYSIS ; EFFICIENCY

The Failing Firm Defence: Merger Policy and Entry

This paper considers the `failing firm defence'. Under this principle, found in most antitrust jurisdictions, a merger that would otherwise be blocked due to its adverse effect on competition is permitted when the firm to be acquired is a failing firm, and an alternative, less detrimental merger is unavailable. Competition authorities have shown considerable reluctance to accept the failing firm defence, and it has been successfully used in just a handful of cases. The paper considers the defence in a dynamic setting with uncertainty. A firm entering a market also considers its ease of exit, foreseeing that it may later wish to leave should market conditions deteriorate. By facilitating exit in times of financial distress, the failing firm defence may encourage entry sufficiently that welfare is increased overall. This view of the defence has several implications relevant to a number of merger cases. The conditions under which greater leniency is welfare-improving are examined.merger policy, failing firm defence, entry, exit

Networks, Options and Preemption

This paper examines the irreversible adoption of a technology whose returns are uncertain, when there is an advantage to being the first adopter, but a network advantage to adopting when others also adopt. There are two main results. First, conditional on adoption being sequential, the follower adopts at the incorrect point, compared with the cooperative solution. The leader adopts at the cooperative point when there is no preemption, and too early if there is preemption. Secondly, there is insufficient simultaneous adoption in equilibrium. The paper examines how these inefficiencies vary as the degree of uncertainty and network effects change. Interesting interactions between the various factors are found. For example, the analysis raises the interesting possibility that the introduction of a small amount of uncertainty can cause the first mover to adopt the technology earlier.

Distributional composition using higher-order dependency vectors

This paper concerns how to apply compositional methods to vectors based on grammatical dependency relation vectors. We demonstrate the potential of a novel approach which uses higher-order grammatical dependency relations as features. We apply the approach to adjective-noun compounds with promising results in the prediction of the vectors for (held-out) observed phrases

Development of weeds in organic crop rotation experiments

Weeds are a major problem in organic farming. Preventive as well as curative measures must be utilised to manage the weeds and avoid proliferation. Besides direct weed control measures, many different aspects of planning and management in the cropping system affect the proliferation of weeds. However, it has rarely been investigated how the whole system affects weed populations