Subject |
Strategies on product and price differentiation for information goods such as software, newspapers, news, music, movies, etc. will be analyzed as well as strategies for system decisions such as switching cost, lock-in cycle, classification of lock-in, valuing an installed customer base, etc.
In addition, network externalities (networks in an economic sense!) will be covered, including collective switching cost and migration paths.
Which strategies can be applied in order to develop standards and alliances? Openness versus control, tactics in formal standard-setting or standard wars will be discussed. The course is based on practical examples, i.e. Microsoft, to illustrate competition policies such as regulations, syndicates and so on.
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Study material |
Carl Shapiro, Hal R. Varian, Information Rules – a strategic guide to the network economy, Harvard Business School Press, Boston MA, 1999.
Oz Shy, The Economics of Network Industries, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge UK, 2001.
Lynne Pepall, Daniel Richards, Gerorge Norman, Industrial Organization: Contemporary Theory and Practice, South-Western College Publishing, 2. ed, 2002.
David Lucking-Reiley, Auctions on the Internet: What's being auctioned, and how?, The Journal of industrial economics 18(3), 2000, 227-252.
Josh Lerner and Jean Tirole, Some Simple Economics of Open Source, 50(2), 2002, 197-234.
Oxford Review of Economic Policy, Vol. 17, No. 2 – Sammlung von Surveyartikel über unterschiedliche Themenbereiche der New Economy
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