Markus Reisinger

Exclusive vs Overlapping Viewers in Media Markets

This paper investigates competition for advertisers in media markets when viewers can subscribe to multiple channels. A central feature of the model is that channels are monopolists in selling advertising opportunities toward their exclusive viewers, but they can only obtain a competitive price for advertising opportunities to multi-homing viewers. Strategic incentives of firms in this setting are different than those in former models of media markets. If viewers can only watch one channel, then firms compete for marginal consumers by reducing the amount of advertising on their channels. In our model, channels have an incentive to increase levels of advertising, in order to reduce the overlap in viewership. We take an account of the differences between the predictions of the two types of models and find that our model is more consistent with recent developments in broadcasting markets. We also show that if channels can charge subscription fees on viewers, then symmetric firms can end up in an asymmetric equilibrium in which one collects all or most of its revenues from advertisers, while the other channel collects most of its revenues via viewer fees.

The Choice of Prices Versus Quantities Under Uncertainty

This paper analyzes a duopoly model with stochastic demand in which firms first choose their strategy variable and compete afterwards. Contrary to the existing literature, we show that firms do not always choose a quantity which is the variable that induces a smaller degree of competition. The reason is that demand uncertainty and the degree of substitutability have countervailing effects on variable choice. Higher uncertainty favors prices, while closer substitutability favors quantities. Moreover, for intermediate values firms choose different strategy variables in equilibrium.

Indirect Taxation in Vertical Oligopoly

This paper analyzes the effects of specific and ad valorem taxation in an industry with downstream and upstream oligopoly. We find that in the short run, i.e. when the number of firms in both markets is exogenous, the results concerning tax incidence tend to be qualitatively similar to models where the upstream market is perfectly competitive. However, both over- and undershifting are more pronounced, potentially to a very large extent. Instead, in the long run under endogenous entry and exit overshifting of both taxes is more likely to occur and is more pronounced under upstream oligopoly. As a result of this, a tax increase is more likely to be welfare reducing. We also demonstrate that downstream and upstream taxation are equivalent in the short run while this is not true for the ad valorem tax in the long run. We show that it is normally more efficient to tax downstream.

The Economics of Internet Media

We survey the economics literature on media as it applies to the Internet. The Internet is an important driver behind media convergence and connects information and communication technologies. While new Internet media share some properties with traditional media, several novel features have appeared: On the content side, aggregation by third parties that have no editorial policy and user-generated content have become increasingly important. On the advertiser side, fine-tuned tailoring and targeting of ads based on individual user characteristics are common features on many Internet media and social networks. On the user side, we observe increased possibilities of time-shifting, multi-homing, and active search. These changes have gone hand-in-hand with new players entering media markets, including search engines and Internet service providers. Some of these players face novel strategic considerations, such as how to present search results. In response to these changes, an emerging economics literature focuses on the allocative and welfare implications of this new media landscape. This paper is an attempt to organize these contributions and provide a selective account of novel economic mechanisms that shape market outcomes of Internet media. A large body of work has focused on the advertising part of the industry, while some studies also look at content provision and the interaction between the two.

Vertical Integration with Complementary Inputs

We analyze the welfare consequences and the profitability of vertical integration when downstream firms deal with complementary input suppliers holding market power. We find that although single integration is anticompetitive, pairwise integration is often procompetitive and involves below cost pricing at the wholesale level. Moreover, we show that vertical integration is not necessarily profitable, since a complementary input provider extracts part of the greater profits earned by the integrated chain. Contrary to previous literature, this effect is particularly strong if the integrated firm is highly efficient. Finally, we analyze the role of information sharing within an integrated organization.

Market Structure and the Competitive Effects of Vertical Integration

We analyze the competitive effects of backward vertical integration in a model with oligopolistic firms that exert market power upstream and downstream. In contrast to previous literature, we show that a small degree of vertical integration is always procompetitive because efficiency effects dominate foreclosure effects. Moreover, vertical integration even to monopoly can be procompetitive. With regard to market structure, we find, somewhat surprisingly, that vertical integration is more likely to be procompetitive if the industry is more concentrated. Our model thus suggests that antitrust authorities should be particularly wary of vertical integration in relatively competitive industries. We demonstrate that the quantitative welfare effects can be substantial there.

A Model of Vertical Oligopolistic Competition

This paper develops a model of successive oligopolies with endogenous market entry, allowing for varying degrees of product differentiation and entry costs in both markets. Our analysis shows that the downstream conditions dominate the overall profitability of the two-tier structure while the upstream conditions mainly affect the distribution of profits. We compare the welfare effects of upstream versus downstream deregulation policies and show that the impact of deregulation may be overvalued when ignoring feedback effects from the other market. Furthermore, we analyze how different forms of vertical restraints influence the endogenous market structure and show when they are welfare enhancing.

Manufacturer collusion: Strategic implications of the channel structure: REISINGERandTHOMES

We investigate how the structure of the distribution channel affects tacit collusion between manufacturers. When selling through a common retailer, we find - in contrast to the conventional understanding of tacit collusion that firms act to maximize industry profits - that colluding manufacturers strategically induce double marginalization so that retail prices are above the monopoly level. This lowers industry profits but increases the profit share that manufacturers appropriate from the retailer. Comparing common distribution with independent (exclusive) distribution, we show that the latter facilitates collusion. Despite this result, common retailing leads to lower welfare because a common retailer monopolizes the downstream market. For the case of independent retailing, we also demonstrate that contract offers that are observable to the rival retailer are not necessarily beneficial for collusive purposes.