Mobile Apps and Targeted Advertising: Competitive Effects of Data Sharing

Ding Li and Hsin-Tien Tsai

Journal of the European Economic Association, 2026, vol. 24, issue 1, 167-198

Abstract: This paper examines the impact of data sharing among mobile apps, leveraging iOS’s policy that limits tracking users using identifiers. We find that this restriction decreases average new downloads by 3.96%. The effect is primarily driven by large apps that heavily rely on third-party data to acquire users (resulting in overlapping effects), and developers who lack first-party data (resulting in a lack of information advantage). However, new app introductions, particularly by first-time developers, decrease following the restriction, implying that large incumbent apps may gain increased dominance in the long run and offset their reduction in market concentration from user acquisition.

Date: 2026
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1093/jeea/jvaf025 (application/pdf)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
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:oup:jeurec:v:24:y:2026:i:1:p:167-198.

Access Statistics for this article

Journal of the European Economic Association is currently edited by Romain Wacziarg

More articles in Journal of the European Economic Association from European Economic Association
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Oxford University Press ().