Factors influencing the pricing of applications in the Apple App Store: A developers\u2019 perspective

Many know how Apple Inc. owes its success in Mobile Commerce to the introduction of the new \u201cApp Store\u201d business model. This new market is characterized by the opening to third party mobile apps, which are distributed to consumers through the App Store. This paper investigates factors that might influence the pricing of applications in the Apple Mobile Application Store. By reviewing the existing literature on the issue and analyzing the strategic features characterizing the App Store, we detect three main factors that could influence prices for apps, that is the number of developed apps, the presence of two-sided network externalities and developer\u2019s specialization. An empirical analysis on data from 68,220 apps downloaded from the Italian App Store is used to test the hypotheses. Regression results support our hypotheses. We argue, that even if the research here presented can be considered as a started analysis to the pricing problem in such markets, this work may have important managerial implication for the thousands of developers that are competing in this emerging market

Venture capital contracting in theory and practice: Implications for entrepreneurship research

This article provides a comprehensive theoretical and empirical literature review of venture capital contracts. This outlines the differences between theoretical and practical uses of contract designs; that is, (1) how does the choice of securities give rise to different adverse selection problems in terms of attracting different types of entrepreneurial companies; how does the choice of securities in conjunction with cash flow and control rights provisions affect (2) the effort levels by the entrepreneur and the investor; and (3) ultimately affect entrepreneurial outcomes. This article highlights the major discrepancies between theory and practice and points out potential avenues for further research