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Price Discrimination in a Two-Sided Market: Theory and Evidence from the Newspaper Industry

Author

Listed:
  • Charles Angelucci

    (Harvard University)

  • Julia Cage

    (Harvard University)

  • Romain de Nijs

    (Paris School of Economics)

Abstract

We investigate theoretically and empirically the determinants of second-degree price discrimination in two-sided markets. We build a model in which a newspaper must attract both readers and advertisers. Readers are uncertain as to their future benefit from reading, and heterogeneous in their taste for reading. Advertisers are heterogeneous in their outside option, taste for subscribers, and taste for occasional buyers. To estimate empirically the effect of the advertisers' side of the industry on price discrimination on the readers' side, we use a "quasi-natural experiment". We exploit the introduction of advertisement on French Television in 1968, which we treat as a negative shock on advertisement revenues of daily national newspapers (treated group), but not on daily local newspapers (control group). We build a new dataset on French local newspapers between 1960 and 1974 and perform a Differences-in-Differences analysis. We find robust evidence of increased price discrimination as a result of a drop in advertisement revenues.

Suggested Citation

  • Charles Angelucci & Julia Cage & Romain de Nijs, 2013. "Price Discrimination in a Two-Sided Market: Theory and Evidence from the Newspaper Industry," Working Papers 13-13, NET Institute.
    • Handle: RePEc:net:wpaper:1313
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    Cited by:

    1. Julia Cagé, 2014. "Media Competition, Information Provision and Political Participation," SciencePo Working papers Main hal-03602440, HAL.
    2. repec:hal:spmain:info:hdl:2441/16juu6v6rg8rq8nl0u1grb4jm6 is not listed on IDEAS
    3. Elias Carroni, 2018. "Behaviour-based price discrimination with cross-group externalities," Journal of Economics, Springer, vol. 125(2), pages 137-157, October.
    4. Böhme Enrico, 2016. "Second-Degree Price Discrimination on Two-Sided Markets," Review of Network Economics, De Gruyter, vol. 15(2), pages 91-115, June.
    5. Adithya Pattabhiramaiah & S. Sriram & Shrihari Sridhar, 2018. "Rising Prices Under Declining Preferences: The Case of the U.S. Print Newspaper Industry," Marketing Science, INFORMS, vol. 37(1), pages 97-122, January.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Newspaper Industry; Second-Degree Price Discrimination; Two-Sided Markets;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • L11 - Industrial Organization - - Market Structure, Firm Strategy, and Market Performance - - - Production, Pricing, and Market Structure; Size Distribution of Firms
    • M13 - Business Administration and Business Economics; Marketing; Accounting; Personnel Economics - - Business Administration - - - New Firms; Startups

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