Competing data intermediaries

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Ichihashi, Shota
• 署名单位: Bank of Canada
• 刊物名称: RAND JOURNAL OF ECONOMICS
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0741-6261
• DOI: 10.1111/1756-2171.12382
• 发表日期: 2021
• 页码: 515-537
• 关键词: market; privacy

摘要

I study a model of competition between data intermediaries, which collect personal data from consumers and sell them to downstream firms. Competition has a limited impact on benefiting consumers: If intermediaries offer high compensation for data, consumers share data with multiple intermediaries, which lowers the downstream price of data and hurts intermediaries. Anticipating this, intermediaries offer low compensation for data. Although consumers are exclusive suppliers of data, the nonrivalry of data can lead to concentration and high intermediary profits in data markets. In particular, if downstream firms use data to extract surplus from consumers, competing intermediaries sustain a monopoly outcome.