Semi-collusion in media markets

Ralf Dewenter, Justus Haucap and Tobias Wenzel

No 11, DICE Discussion Papers from Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf, Düsseldorf Institute for Competition Economics (DICE)

Abstract: This paper explores the effects that collusion can have in newspaper markets where firms compete for advertising as well as for readership. We compare three modes of competition: i) competition in the advertising and the reader market, ii) semi-collusion over advertising (with competition in the reader market), and iii) (full) collusion in both the advertising and the reader market. We find that semi-collusion leads to less advertising (but higher advertising prices) and lower copy prices which is beneficial for readers. Under certain circumstances, semi-collusion may even benefit advertisers as newspaper circulation is higher. In addition, total welfare may rise due to semi-collusion. Results under full collusion are ambiguous. However, even under full collusion newspaper copy prices may decrease and welfare may increase.

Keywords: Media Markets; Collusion; Two-Sided Markets (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D43 K21 L40 L82 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2010
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-bec, nep-com, nep-cul and nep-ind
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (6)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.econstor.eu/bitstream/10419/43667/1/640630219.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: Semi-collusion in media markets (2011)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:zbw:dicedp:11

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in DICE Discussion Papers from Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf, Düsseldorf Institute for Competition Economics (DICE) Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics ().