{"title":"Flagship Entry in Online Marketplaces","authors":"Ginger Zhe Jin, Zhentong Lu, Xiaolu Zhou, Lu Fang","doi":"10.1111/joie.70009","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/joie.70009","url":null,"abstract":"<div>\u0000 \u0000 <p>In this paper, we empirically study how flagship entry in an online marketplace affects consumers, the platform, and various sellers on the platform. We find flagship entry may benefit consumers by expanding the choice set, by intensifying price competition within the entry brand, and by improving consumer perception for parts of the platform. In the meantime, flagship entry cannibalizes the sales of same-brand sellers, while other brands may gain as the buyer base expands on the platform. Counterfactual simulation suggests that flagship entry improves the gross merchandise value (GMV) of the platform and overall consumer welfare in most cases.</p>\u0000 </div>","PeriodicalId":47963,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Industrial Economics","volume":"74 1","pages":"60-101"},"PeriodicalIF":1.0,"publicationDate":"2026-03-08","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"147562582","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Multiproduct Firms, Consumer Search, and Demand Heterogeneity","authors":"Yuta Kittaka","doi":"10.1111/joie.70012","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/joie.70012","url":null,"abstract":"<p>I construct a consumer search model with demand-side heterogeneity, in which some consumers search for a single product while others search for multiple products. I show that a positive demand shock to one product induces firms to increase that product's price while decreasing the other product's price, and the latter effect is greater than the former one. Such a price adjustment is strengthened if a demand shock to one product negatively affects the other product's demand. By contrast, if a positive demand shock affects both products, it decreases both prices, providing a rational explanation for price falls during demand peaks.</p>","PeriodicalId":47963,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Industrial Economics","volume":"74 1","pages":"48-59"},"PeriodicalIF":1.0,"publicationDate":"2026-03-08","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/joie.70012","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"147566124","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The Productivity Effect of Public–Private Partnership","authors":"Vincenzo Mollisi","doi":"10.1111/joie.70013","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/joie.70013","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Public–Private partnerships (PPPs) are often employed by public authorities to deliver infrastructure and public services through contracts bundling construction, operation, and maintenance over extended periods. Using a novel dataset covering the universe of Italian district heating plants (DHs) from 2007 to 2014, I show that PPP improves firm-level productivity by incentivizing investments in higher capital quality. Capital quality—proxied by a thermal density index derived from the characteristics of the DH pipeline network—significantly improves productivity only when combined with PPP procurement. A structural production function approach reveals that a one-unit increase in capital quality raises output by 19% in PPP firms, with negligible effects in non-PPP firms. Counterfactual calculations suggest that enforcing PPP-like quality standards across all plants would increase average output by 3266 MWh and reduce CO<sub>2</sub> emissions by 1568 tons per plant per year. The results are robust to selection bias, measurement error, and functional form misspecification. While this paper provides the first evidence that PPPs enhance productivity in network utilities by internalizing technological externalities between construction and operation, whether these gains fully translate into welfare improvements through pricing and Value for Money remains an open question for future research.</p>","PeriodicalId":47963,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Industrial Economics","volume":"74 1","pages":"102-123"},"PeriodicalIF":1.0,"publicationDate":"2026-03-08","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/joie.70013","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"147565553","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Share to Scare: Technology Sharing in the Absence of Intellectual Property Rights","authors":"Jos Jansen","doi":"10.1111/joie.70008","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/joie.70008","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Cournot duopolists choose between sharing their technologies, for example, through scientific publications, or keeping them secret. The disadvantage of sharing efficient technologies is that a less efficient competitor imitates and becomes tougher. The advantage is that the competitor learns that the sharing firm is tougher than expected. Limited technology diffusion occurs in equilibrium, with at most one firm sharing. Unilateral sharing incentives are strongest for intermediate technologies. For identical distributions skewed towards efficient technologies, this yields equilibria where one firm shares all or only intermediate technologies, besides an equilibrium without sharing. Further, I consider profit implications, non-identical distributions, and several extensions.</p>","PeriodicalId":47963,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Industrial Economics","volume":"74 1","pages":"1-16"},"PeriodicalIF":1.0,"publicationDate":"2026-03-08","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/joie.70008","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"147562618","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Financial Incentives for the Development of Blockchain-Based Platforms","authors":"Andrea Canidio","doi":"10.1111/joie.70010","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/joie.70010","url":null,"abstract":"<div>\u0000 \u0000 <p>I develop a theoretical model showing that an entrepreneur prefers to create a decentralized digital platform with a crypto-token as its internal currency (rather than a traditional platform) when the total surplus from trade is low relative to the dollar value of transactions. I then study inefficiencies in the development of such platforms. When external funding is not required, effort may be above or below its efficient level. When external funding is required, multiple Pareto-ranked equilibria arise: in each, with strictly positive probability, the entrepreneur liquidates his tokens and halts development.</p>\u0000 </div>","PeriodicalId":47963,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Industrial Economics","volume":"74 1","pages":"34-47"},"PeriodicalIF":1.0,"publicationDate":"2026-03-08","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"147570074","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Transparency and Innovation in Organizations","authors":"Osamu Hayashida, Kimiyuki Morita, Takeharu Sogo","doi":"10.1111/joie.70011","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/joie.70011","url":null,"abstract":"<div>\u0000 \u0000 <p>We study how transparency—the observability of interim performance measures—affects innovation incentives. In each of two periods, an agent selects either a new or well-established idea and exerts effort to implement that idea into products or services. Transparency promotes idea exploration by allowing idea switching in response to negative signals. However, this can become counterproductive by wasting the knowledge acquired through implementation effort and reducing effort incentives if the output relies heavily on implementation effort rather than idea quality. Paradoxically, transparency can be further counterproductive if (1) the acquired knowledge becomes less idea-specific, (2) the variance in idea quality increases, or (3) the interim performance measure becomes more precise.</p>\u0000 </div>","PeriodicalId":47963,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Industrial Economics","volume":"74 1","pages":"17-33"},"PeriodicalIF":1.0,"publicationDate":"2026-03-08","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"147568592","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The High Cost of Low Range: Estimating the Hidden Cost of Range Anxiety in Electric Vehicles","authors":"Jonathan B. Scott, Molin Qin","doi":"10.1111/joie.70015","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/joie.70015","url":null,"abstract":"<div>\u0000 \u0000 <p>Electric vehicle (EV) drivers experience range anxiety (RA) due to a gap between latent travel demand and battery range. Low fuel prices or limited range exacerbate RA. Range relevance diminishes under high fuel prices, as driving demand is suppressed, while low fuel prices have small effects on RA when range is sufficiently high. We formalize and estimate RA, leveraging the implicit interaction between local electricity prices and range. Results suggest average prospective EV consumers expect $2500–3400/year welfare costs through the RA mechanism. These estimates have strong implications for policies targeting EV ownership, underscoring another channel EV costs exceed conventional vehicles.</p>\u0000 </div>","PeriodicalId":47963,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Industrial Economics","volume":"74 1","pages":"140-158"},"PeriodicalIF":1.0,"publicationDate":"2026-03-08","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"147569860","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Unobserved Wholesale Contracts","authors":"Maarten C. W. Janssen, Santanu Roy","doi":"10.1111/joie.70014","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/joie.70014","url":null,"abstract":"<p>A manufacturer with private information about product quality sells through a retailer to end consumers. By hiding wholesale pricing contracts from end consumers, the manufacturer can hide his private information, eliminate signaling distortions and earn higher (expected) profit compared to observable wholesale pricing as well as direct selling; consumers may also earn higher surplus under such contracts even though they do not learn true product quality. Policies that mandate disclosure of quality or of upstream contracts can reduce welfare relative to the equilibrium with hidden contracts. We formalize this interaction as a class of intermediated signaling games—distinct from standard signaling models because of the hidden interaction with the intermediary—and introduce a new belief refinement, IC-I, tailored to such games and analogous to the Intuitive Criterion.</p>","PeriodicalId":47963,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Industrial Economics","volume":"74 1","pages":"124-139"},"PeriodicalIF":1.0,"publicationDate":"2026-03-08","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/joie.70014","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"147566787","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Competition With Limited Attention to Quality Differences","authors":"Stefanie Y. Schmitt","doi":"10.1111/joie.70007","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/joie.70007","url":null,"abstract":"<p>I analyze the implication of consumers' limited attention to quality differences on market outcomes and welfare. I model this limited attention with a perception threshold, that is, consumers only perceive quality differences between goods that exceed their perception threshold. The model allows for equilibria with distinguishable and with indistinguishable qualities. If firms are sufficiently horizontally differentiated, firms produce goods with indistinguishable qualities. Then, limited attention harms consumers and benefits firms. If firms are not sufficiently horizontally differentiated, firms produce goods with distinguishable qualities. Then, limited attention has no effect on consumers' welfare or firms' profits.</p>","PeriodicalId":47963,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Industrial Economics","volume":"73 4","pages":"620-636"},"PeriodicalIF":1.0,"publicationDate":"2025-08-11","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/joie.70007","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145652445","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Inconspicuous Personalized Pricing","authors":"Benjamin Reed Shiller","doi":"10.1111/joie.70006","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/joie.70006","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Emerging tracking data enable precise predictions of individuals' reservation values. However, firms may be reluctant to overtly adopt personalized pricing. This paper proposes a strategy that embeds personalization within a dynamic pricing framework, tailoring prices privately while committing to infrequent adjustments to obscure its use. Simulation analyses based on both theoretical and empirically estimated distributions of consumer valuations reveal that profits rise most when consumer arrivals are moderately frequent. Increasing the precision of individual-level demand estimates broadens the range of products for which this strategy is profitable. These findings suggest the approach may be an auspicious strategy for online platforms.</p>","PeriodicalId":47963,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Industrial Economics","volume":"73 4","pages":"608-619"},"PeriodicalIF":1.0,"publicationDate":"2025-08-08","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/joie.70006","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145652549","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}