Let the user speak : is feedback on Facebook a source of firms' innovation?

Social media open up new possibilities for firms to exploit information from various external sources. Does this information help firms to become more innovative? Combining firm-level survey data with information from firms' Facebook pages, we study the role that firms' and users' activities on Facebook play in the innovation process. We find that firms' adoption of a Facebook page as well as feedback from users are positively and significantly related to product innovations. Analysis of the content of Facebook posts and comments reveals that firms are more likely to introduce product innovations if they actively ask for feedback, while only negative user comments are positively and significantly related to innovation success. These results withstand a large set of robustness checks, including estimations that take potential endogeneity of firms' Facebook use into account

Mobile applications and access to private data : the supply side of the Android ecosystem

We analyze the data collection strategies of 65,000 developers in the market for mobile applications and track 300,000 applications over four years. Many apps belong to developers with multiple apps. This fact generates variation in the privacy behaviors of the same developer for our analysis. We uncover three stylized facts: First, developers “learn” to use increasingly intrusive data strategies as they become more experienced. Second, intrusive data collection is most likely in apps that target the 13+, and 16+ age category, which raises concerns for the protection of young app consumers. Third, even within developers, critical and atypical permissions predict problematic usage of private user data most successfully. Our findings inform both regulators and scientists who wish to model supply in the market for mobile apps

Mehr Transparenz bei Suchergebnissen auf Onlineplattformen nützt den Verbrauchern

Die Anordnung von Suchergebnissen auf Internetplattformen beeinflusst maßgeblich, welche Güter gekauft und welche Dienstleistungen gebucht werden. Allerdings ist nicht jede Positionierung und Empfehlung bei großen Internetplattformen im Interesse der Nutzer/innen. Unsere Ergebnisse zeigen, dass die Sichtbarkeit eines Zimmerangebots auf einem Buchungsportal niedriger ist, wenn das Hotel auf einem konkurrierenden Buchungsportal oder der eigenen Website das Zimmer günstiger anbietet. Wenn Buchungsportale die Reihung ihrer empfohlenen Suchergebnisse von Preisen auf anderen Kanälen abhängig machen, dann mag das zwar ihre Gewinne maximieren, steht aber nicht unbedingt in Einklang mit dem Interesse von Kunden, die davon ausgehen,dass die „Empfehlungen“ die für sie besten Angebote sind. Diese Praxis birgt zudem Risiken: Ein Portal, das die Anordnung seiner Suchergebnisse davon abhängig macht, wie die Hotels auf anderen Portalen Preise setzen, beeinflusst die Preisgestaltung von Hotels über alle Vertriebskanäle hinweg. Wenn Hotels sich durch ein solches Verhalten gezwungen sehen, ähnliche Preise auf allen Vertriebskanälen zu setzen, wirkt das Verhalten der Portale bis zu einem gewissen Grad wie ein Ersatz für Preisparitätsklauseln. Mit diesen hatten Buchungsportale Hotels in der Vergangenheit vorgeschrieben, stets gleiche Preise auf den Vertriebskanälen zu setzen. Da dies den Wettbewerb zwischen den Buchungsportalen behindern kann, sind sie von Wettbewerbsbehörden und Gesetzgebern in verschiedenen europäischen Ländern verboten worden. Weiterhin kann ein solches Verhalten der Portale dazu führen, dass die Suchergebnisse nicht in Übereinstimmung mit dem Kundeninteresse angeordnet werden, was zu einer niedrigen Suchqualität für die Nutzer/innen führt

Hotel rankings of online travel agents, channel pricing, and consumer protection

We investigate whether online travel agents (OTAs) assign hotels worse positions in their search results if these set lower hotel prices at other OTAs or on their own websites. We formally characterize how an OTA can use such a strategy to reduce price differentiation across distribution channels. Our empirical analysis shows that the position of a hotel in the search results of OTAs is better when the prices charged by the hotel on other channels are higher. This is consistent with the hypothesis that OTAs alter their search results to discipline hotels for aggressive prices on competing channels, thereby reducing the search quality for consumers

Intangible capital indicators based on web scraping of social media

Knowledge-based capital is a key factor for productivity growth. Over the past 15 years, it has been increasingly recognised that knowledge-based capital comprises much more than technological knowledge and that these other components are essentia for understanding productivity developments and competitiveness of both firms and economies. We develop selected indicators for knowledge-based capital,often denoted as intangible capital, on the basis of publicly available data from online platforms.These indicators based on data from Facebook and the employer branding and review platform Kununu are compared by OLS regressions with firm-level survey data from the Mannheim Innovation Panel (MIP). All regressions show a positive and significant relationship between survey-based firm-level expenditures for marketing and on-the-job training and the respective information stemming from the online platforms. We therefore explore the possibility of predicting brand equity and firm-specific human capital with machine learning methods

Evaluation of Best Price Clauses in Online Hotel Bookings

We analyze the best price clauses (BPCs) of online travel agents (OTAs) using meta-search price data of nearly 30,000 hotels in different countries. We find that BPCs influence the pricing and availability of hotel rooms across online sales channels. In particular, hotels publish their offers more often at Booking.com when the OTA does not use the narrow BPC, and also tend to promote the direct online channel more actively. Moreover, the abolition of Booking.com’s narrow BPC is associated with the direct channel of chain hotels having the strictly lowest price more often

Big Tech Acquisitions: Towards Empirical Evidence

The current policy discussion over Big Tech Acquisitions debates whether merger control needs to be updated to account for the particular features of digital industries. Empirical evidence on the competitive effects of big tech acquisitions is still scarce. Based on product-level data from the Google Play Store, we find that half of the acquired apps are discontinued, whereas continued apps become free of charge but request more privacy-sensitive permissions post-acquisition. To fully evaluate the competitive effects of Big Tech Acquisitions, it is necessary to study the impact on competing apps as well as potential spillovers to competing developers’ other apps

Let the user speak: Is feedback on Facebook a source of firms’ innovation?

Social media open up new possibilities for firms to exploit information from various external sources. Does this information help firms to become more innovative? Combining firm-level survey data with information from firms’ Facebook pages, we study the role that firms’ and users’ activities on Facebook play in the innovation process. We find that firms’ adoption of a Facebook page as well as feedback from users are positively and significantly related to product innovations. Our results withstand a large set of robustness checks, including estimations that take potential endogeneity of firms’ Facebook use as well as unobserved heterogeneity into account. Analyzing the content of firm posts and user comments reveals that Facebook adoption is only correlated with product innovations if firms and users actively participate in a discussion, especially when engagement is above-average and comes from both sides

Mobile applications and access to private data : the supply side of the Android ecosystem

We analyze the data collection strategies of 65,000 developers in the market for mobile applications and track 300,000 applications over four years. Many apps belong to developers with multiple apps. This fact generates variation in the privacy behaviors of the same developer for our analysis. We uncover three stylized facts: First, developers “learn” to use increasingly intrusive data strategies as they become more experienced. Second, intrusive data collection is most likely in apps that target the 13+, and 16+ age category, which raises concerns for the protection of young app consumers. Third, even within developers, critical and atypical permissions predict problematic usage of private user data most successfully. Our findings inform both regulators and scientists who wish to model supply in the market for mobile apps