Descrizione del progetto
Comprendere l’economia dei servizi informativi
La recente crescita dei servizi informativi ha portato anche a un aumento delle esternalità tra gli agenti economici. Le informazioni presenti sulle piattaforme digitali, sui motori di ricerca e sulle reti di comunicazione possono essere viste come beni pubblici, la cui produzione e il cui scambio tra due parti può andare a beneficio o a danno di altre parti. Il progetto ISECO, finanziato dal CER, mira a esplorare in modo esaustivo la natura economica dei servizi informativi sia a livello virtuale che fisico, con un’attenzione particolare alle esternalità. Gli obiettivi della ricerca comprendono la definizione di una teoria pertinente sulle dinamiche dei mercati bilaterale, l’indagine delle questioni relative alla progettazione, ai diritti alla privacy e alle commissioni di transazione, l’analisi dei prezzi, lo sviluppo di modelli di investimento dinamici, nonché la creazione di strumenti per i responsabili delle politiche concorrenziali.
Obiettivo
This application aims at fostering our knowledge of the economics of information services by studying the strategic interactions between agents involved in the production and exchange of information services. In this context, externalities play a key role explored by this proposal. Their increasing prevalence in information services can be traced to three features:
- Many information services involve one-sided or two-sided network externalities.
- Information is a public good and the production and exchange of information between two parties may affect other parties in a positive or negative manner.
- Information services and physical infrastructures are complements.
Externalities arise in the two layers of the information society, the content level and the physical infrastructure. The proposal is then organized around four parts:
1. Background theory: two-sided markets, network dynamics, contractual externalities
2. Virtual layer: recommendation systems, privacy, transaction costs
3. Physical layer: pricing , investment
4. Competition policy for two-sided markets
The first part consists of the development of relevant theory with original and novel methods including for instance global games, coordination games and recent contract theory. The second part studies specific issues in information services such as the design of search engines and the right to privacy. It also includes empirical investigation of on-line transaction costs using proprietary data of transactions on e-commerce platforms. The third part is concerned with the infrastructure. It studies net-neutrality and the prices of data from the perspective of price theory, accounting for the gratuity of some services. It will also develop original dynamic investment models to understand the role of the complementarity between infrastructure and service innovation and the role of legacy. The last part will develop tools for competition policy makers.
Campo scientifico
Programma(i)
Argomento(i)
Meccanismo di finanziamento
ERC-ADG - Advanced GrantIstituzione ospitante
31080 Toulouse
Francia