2024年4月25日（周四）13:30-15:00 史册 （香港中文大学）

讲座系列：产业组织理论与政策第20场（学科发展系列讲座总期第55场）

讲座人：史册  （香港中文大学经济系助理教授）

时间：2024年4月25日（周四）13:30-15:00

地点：博学楼1222

主持人：李建培（对外经贸大学国际经济贸易学院经济学系教授）

讲座题目：Differential Pricing of Internet Traffic: Theory and Empirical Analysis

讲座摘要：This paper examines theoretically and empirically the welfare effects of differential pricing for Internet traffic in a two-sided digital market. We begin by analyzing a model of differential pricing by a monopolist Internet service provider （ISP）, wherein charges are levied on content providers for traffic flow and on consumers for Internet access. Content providers differ in terms of their demand for Internet traffic and their value to consumers （“network effects”）. Under linear demands, we show that compared to uniform pricing, differential pricing based solely on network effects is welfare-enhancing, while purely elasticity-based differential pricing reduces content provider surplus and social welfare. The welfare effects become ambiguous when both network effects and demand elasticities differ across content providers. Using a unique dataset on monthly transactions between a large ISP and major content providers in China （where ISPs legally own Internet traffic services in the form of CDN）, we estimate the model and quantify the welfare effects using the demand and cost estimates. Our counterfactual analysis shows that consumer surplus and content provider surplus increase under differential pricing; however, a disproportionate share of the welfare gain is captured by several big content

providers, while smaller content providers tend to become worse off.

主讲人简介：

史册，香港中文大学经济系助理教授，浙江大学—香港中文大学数字经济联合研究中心副主任。主要研究领域为产业组织与应用微观经济学，研究主题包括数字经济、平台企业与广告、医药产业的实证分析，主持多项香港研资局基金一般项目及青年项目。曾获2022年度数字经济研究先锋奖。

讲座人主页：

https://mattshi.weebly.com/