Arbeitspapier
Self-preferencing, Quality Provision, and Welfare in Mobile Application Markets
Platforms often display their products ahead of third-party products in search. Is this due to consumers preferring platform-owned products or platforms engaging in self-preferencing by biasing search towards their own products? What are the welfare implications? I develop a structural model of mobile application markets to identify self-preferencing and quantify its welfare effects, taking into account third-party developers' quality adjustment. A new dataset on app downloads, prices, characteristics, and search rankings is used to estimate the model. Estimates indicate self-preferencing. Simulations show higher consumer welfare and third-party profits without self-preferencing.
- Language
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Englisch
- Bibliographic citation
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Series: Discussion Paper ; No. 434
- Classification
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Wirtschaft
Consumer Economics: Empirical Analysis
Search; Learning; Information and Knowledge; Communication; Belief; Unawareness
Oligopoly and Other Imperfect Markets
Information and Internet Services; Computer Software
- Subject
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competition policy
platform design
consumer search
endogenous product choice
- Event
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Geistige Schöpfung
- (who)
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Teng, Xuan
- Event
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Veröffentlichung
- (who)
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Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München und Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Collaborative Research Center Transregio 190 - Rationality and Competition
- (where)
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München und Berlin
- (when)
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2023
- Handle
- Last update
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10.03.2025, 11:45 AM CET
Data provider
ZBW - Deutsche Zentralbibliothek für Wirtschaftswissenschaften - Leibniz-Informationszentrum Wirtschaft. If you have any questions about the object, please contact the data provider.
Object type
- Arbeitspapier
Associated
- Teng, Xuan
- Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München und Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Collaborative Research Center Transregio 190 - Rationality and Competition
Time of origin
- 2023