Week 1
Mandatory Read:
1. Carl Shapiro; Hal R Varian, Information rules: a strategic guide to the network economy, ch. 1 Worldcat.org hyperlink
2. Hirshleifer, J. and J. Riley (1992). The Analytics of Uncertainty and Information
(Cambridge Univ. Press). Sections 1.0 – 1.4.1 (pp. 7-19), 1.5 (pp. 23-33), 5.0-5.2.2 (pp.167-187), 5.2.4-5.2.5 (pp. 200-208) (CT) Worldcat.org hyperlink resource
Supplemental Read:
1. DeLong, J. B. and Froomkin, A. M. (2000). "Speculative Microeconomics for
Tomorrow's Economy". First Monday Vol 5 No. 2, February, 2000. (online/CT) 2.
Hirshleifer and Riley, op. cit. Sections 1.6 (pp. 33-39), 5.2.3 (pp. 187-200), 5.3.0-5.3.2 (pp. 209-222) (CT).Worldcat.org hyperlink
Week2
Mandatory Read:
1. Carl Shapiro; Hal R Varian, Information rules: a strategic guide to the network economy, ch. 2 Worldcat.org hyperlink
2. Nagle, T. (1984). Economic Foundations for Pricing. Journal of Business, 57 (pt. 1 of 2), s3-s26. (JSTOR) (CT)Worldcat.org hyperlink
3. Sahay, A. (2007), “How to Reap Higher Profits with Dynamic Pricing”, Sloan
Management Review, 48(4/Summer): 53-60. (CT)
Supplemental Read:
1. Bonn, Maria S., Wendy P. Lougee, Jeffrey K. MacKie-Mason and Juan F. Riveros (2008), "The PEAK Project: A Field Experiment in Pricing and Usage of a Digital Collection," in MacKie-Mason, J. and W. Lougee, eds., Economics and Usage of Digital Collections. University of Michigan, Scholarly Publishing Office. (CT) Worldcat.org hyperlink
2. Lancaster, K. (1966). A New Approach to Consumer Theory. Journal of Political Economy, 74(2), 132-157. (CT) (JSTOR) Worldcat.org hyperlink
3. Brooks, Christopher H., Robert S. Gazzale, Rajarshi Das, Jeffrey O. Kephart, Jeffrey K. MacKie-Mason, and Edmund H. Durfee (2002). "Model Selection in an Information Economy: Choosing What to Learn," Computational Intelligence, vol. 18, no. 4 (Nov.): 566-582. (CT) Worldcat.org hyperlink
Mandatory Case: Baradwaj, N. and J. B. Gordon (2007). Atlantic Computer: A bundle of pricing options. Harvard Business School Case 2078. (to be distributed in class)
Week 3
Mandatory Read:
1. Carl Shapiro; Hal R Varian, Information rules: a strategic guide to the network economy, ch. 7
2. Katz, M. L. and Shapiro, C. (1994). "Systems Competition and Network Effects". Journal of Economic Perspectives. 8(2): 93-115. (CT) (JSTOR)
3. Liebowitz, S. J. and Margolis, S. E. (1994). Network Externality: An Uncommon Tragedy. Journal of Economic Perspectives. 8(2): 133-150. (CT) (JSTOR)
Supplementary Read:
1. Rochet, Jean-Charles and Jean Tirole (2005). "Two-Sided Markets: A Progress Report", IDEI Working Paper, 29 November. (CT)
2. Eisenmann, T., G. Parker and M. Van Alstyne (2006). “Strategies for Two-Sided Markets”. Harvard Business Review, October. (CT)
Mandatory Case: U.S. v. Microsoft
1. Gilbert, R. J. and M L. Katz (2001). “An Economist’s Guide to U.S. v. Microsoft”, The Journal of Economic Perspectives, Vol. 15, No. 2. (Spring), pp. 25-44. (CT)
2. Jeffrey Mackie-Mason (JMM), Case Notes.
Week 4
Mandatory Read:
1. Carl Shapiro; Hal R Varian, Information rules: a strategic guide to the network economy, ch. 3 pp. 73-78
2. Bakos, Y., & Brynjolfsson, E. (1999). "Bundling Information Goods: Pricing, Profits, and Efficiency," Management Science, 45(12): 1613-1630. (CT)
Supplementary Read:
1. Brooks, Christopher H., Robert S. Gazzale, Jeffrey K. MacKie-Mason, and Edmund H. Durfee (2004). "Improving Learning Performance by Applying Economic Knowledge", Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol. 3048 (Springer-Verlag). (CT)
2. MacKie-Mason, Jeffrey K. and Juan Riveros (2000), "Economics and Electronic Access to Scholarly Information," in B. Kahin and H. Varian, eds., Internet Publishing and Beyond: The Economics of Digital Information and Intellectual Property (MIT Press: Cambridge, Mass.), esp. sections 1-3.1, 3.3, 4.2-4.3 (CT)
Mandatory Case: Bundling Academic Journals
1. Edlin, Aaron S. and Daniel L. Rubinfeld (2004). "Exclusion or Efficient Pricing? The "Big Deal" Bundling of Academic Journals", Antitrust Law Journal, 72(1): 119-159. (CT)
2. McCabe, Mark (2002), "Journal Pricing and Mergers: A Portfolio Approach."
American Economic Review, Vol. 92(1, March):259-269. (CT)
3. JMM, Case Notes.
Week 5
Mandatory Read:
1. Carl Shapiro; Hal R Varian, Information rules: a strategic guide to the network economy, ch. 4
2. Dirk Bergemann, Thomas Eisenbach, Joan Feigenbaum, Scott Shenker, Flexibility as an Instrument in Digital Rights Management. In Workshop on the Economics of Information Security 2005. (CT)
Mandatory Case: File Sharing
1. Felix Oberholzer and Koleman Strumpf (2007). The Effect of File Sharing on Record Sales: An Empirical Analysis”.Journal of Political Economy, 115(1): 1-42. (CT)
2. Liebowitz, S. (2007), “A Comment on the Oberholzer-Gee and Strumpf Paper on File- Sharing”, Working paper, University of Texas at Dallas (September). Available from: http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1017418. (CT)
3. JMM, Case Notes.
Week 6
Mandatory Read:
1. Chris Anderson (2006), The Long Tail (Hyperion), chs. 1, 2, 8. (CT)
2. Brynjolfsson, E., Y. J. Hu, M. D. Smith (2006). “From Niches to Riches: Anatomy of the Long Tail”, MIT Sloan Management Review, 47(4), 67-71. (CT)
Mandatory Case: Long wait for long tail?
1. Wu, T. (2006), “The Wrong Tail”, Slate, 21 July. (CT)
2. Gomes, L. (2006), “It May Be a Long Time Before the Long Tail Is Wagging the Web”, The Wall Street Journal, 26 July. (CT)
3. JMM, Case Notes.
