Issue 3

Volume 12 JOURNAL OF ECONOMICS & MANAGEMENT STRATEGY
Fall 2003

Minimum Differentiation in Commercial Media Markets

Esther Gal-Or and Anthony Dukes
We examine a model of locational choice in commercial media markets. Commercial media (stations) compete for audiences with their choice of programming variety in order to attract advertising revenues from advertisers. These advertisers (producers) compete in a differentiated product market and rely on advertising to inform consumers about their product. We use the model to show that media have incentives to minimize the extent of differentiation between them. This incentive is an implication of the assumed role of advertising as information and as an ultimate nuisance to the audience. When stations minimally differentiate their programming offerings, producers choose lower levels of advertising. Consequently, lower levels of product information are available to consumers, permitting producers to gain higher margins on product sales. As a result, stations can negotiate higher payments for advertising space.

Knowledge Spillovers and Growth in the Disagglomeration of the Us Advertising-Agency Industry

Charles King III, Alvin J. Silk and Niels Ketelhöhn
We investigate knowledge spillovers and externalities in the disagglomeration and growth of the advertising-agency industry. A simple model of high demand, low wages, and externalities associated with clusters of related industries can explain the dispersion of advertising agency employment across states. Other factors affected the industry growth rate within states. Consistent with Jacobs and Porter but contrary to Marshall, Arrow, and Romer, competition, but not specialization, enhanced growth. In accord with Porter (1990), growth increased with buyer cluster size. Diversity had no effect on growth. Despite improvements in telecommunications and transportation reducing effective distances, location still matters.

The Dvd-vs.-Divx Standard War: Empirical Evidence of Network Effects and Preannouncement Effects

David Dranove and Neil Gandal
We test empirically for network effects and preannouncement effects in the DVD market. We do this by measuring the effect of potential (incompatible) competition on a network undergoing growth. We find that there are network effects. The data are generally consistent with the hypothesis that the preannouncement of DIVX temporarily slowed down the adoption of DVD technology.

Randal Heeb Innovation and Vertical Integration in Complementary Markets

Randal Heeb
This paper studies vertical integration by an essential-good monopolist into complementary markets. Unlike previous studies of complementary products, consumers are allowed to purchase some components of a complementary basket, but not others. Two different pricing strategies by the integrated firm may emerge. In mass-market equilibria, the price of the complement under integration is zero and it is given away with the essential good. Niche-market equilibria have more conventional pricing. This dichotomy is consistent with consumer software pricing. Integration enhances consumer and total surplus, unless it leads to exit by the higher-quality rival, in which case welfare is reduced. Exit is most likely when it is least damaging to consumer welfare. Integration reduces innovation by the rival firm. The effect on innovation by the integrated firm is ambiguous, but numerical computation of an extended model indicates that integration increases the innovation of the integrated firm and enhances welfare.

Selling to Socially Responsible Consumers: Competition and The Private Provision of Public Goods

Mark Bagnoli andSusan G. Watts
We model firms as competing for socially responsible consumers by linking the provision of a public good (environmentally friendly or socially responsible activities) to sales of their private goods. In many cases, too little of the public good is provided, but under certain conditions, competition leads to excessive provision. Further, there is generally a trade-off between more efficient provision of the private and the public good. Our results indicate that the level of private provision of the public good varies inversely with the competitiveness of the private-good market and that the types of public goods provided are biased toward those for which consumers have high participation value.