Une analyse économique du phénomène de la longue traîne dans les industries culturelles

Since the 1990s, digital technologies have transformed the value chain in cultural industries by introducing new ways of creating, distributing and promoting information goods. The concept of the Long Tail (Anderson [2004]) states that the development of Internet and e-commerce should lead to an increase in market share of less popular products (i.e., niche products), whose sales are expected to generate profits at least comparable to that of bestsellers. In this paper, we propose an economic analysis of the Long Tail. We first present the mixed empirical results of the literature on the magnitude of the Long Tail phenomenon in cultural markets, and then analyze the economic mechanisms that can contribute to its development. We also discuss the implications of the Long Tail for firms? strategies in cultural industries.