Competition for Exclusivity and Customer Lock-in: Evidence from Copyright Enforcement in China Staff Working Paper 2023-43 Youming Liu This paper studies the music streaming industry and argues that having exclusive rights granted by copyright law drives firms to offer exclusive content to lock in customers. I employ theoretical and descriptive empirical analysis, along with a dynamic structural model, to support the argument and explore policies for improving competition. Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Econometric and statistical methods, Firm dynamics, Market structure and pricing JEL Code(s): L, L1, L13, L4, L42, L5, L51
Addictive Platforms Staff Working Paper 2022-16 Shota Ichihashi, Byung-Cheol Kim We study competition for consumer attention, in which platforms can sacrifice service quality for attention. A platform can choose the “addictiveness” of its service. Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Economic models JEL Code(s): D, D4, D40, L, L5, L51
Flight from Safety: How a Change to the Deposit Insurance Limit Affects Households’ Portfolio Allocation Staff Working Paper 2019-29 H. Evren Damar, Reint Gropp, Adi Mordel Deposit insurance protects depositors from failing banks, thus making insured deposits risk-free. When a deposit insurance limit is increased, some deposits that previously were uninsured become insured, thereby increasing the share of risk-free assets in households’ portfolios. This increase cannot simply be undone by households, because to invest in uninsured deposits, a household must first invest in insured deposits up to the limit. This basic insight is the starting point of the analysis in this paper. Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Financial institutions, Financial system regulation and policies JEL Code(s): D, D1, D14, G, G2, G21, G28, L, L5, L51
On the Essentiality of E-Money Staff Working Paper 2015-43 Jonathan Chiu, Tsz-Nga Wong Recent years have witnessed the advances of e-money systems such as Bitcoin, PayPal and various forms of stored-value cards. This paper adopts a mechanism design approach to identify some essential features of different payment systems that implement and improve the constrained optimal resource allocation. Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Bank notes, Digital currencies and fintech, Payment clearing and settlement systems JEL Code(s): E, E4, E42, E5, E58, L, L5, L51
E-Money: Efficiency, Stability and Optimal Policy Staff Working Paper 2014-16 Jonathan Chiu, Tsz-Nga Wong What makes e-money more special than cash? Is the introduction of e-money necessarily welfare enhancing? Is an e-money system necessarily stable? What is the optimal way to design an efficient and stable e-money scheme? Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Bank notes, Digital currencies and fintech, Payment clearing and settlement systems JEL Code(s): E, E4, E42, E5, E58, L, L5, L51
Some Economics of Private Digital Currency Staff Working Paper 2013-38 Joshua S. Gans, Hanna Halaburda This paper reviews some recent developments in digital currency, focusing on platform-sponsored currencies such as Facebook Credits. Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Bank notes, Digital currencies and fintech, Economic models, Payment clearing and settlement systems JEL Code(s): D, D4, D42, E, E4, L, L5, L51