IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/kap/jincot/v19y2019i2d10.1007_s10842-018-0284-5.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Contestability in the Digital Music Player Market

Author

Listed:
  • Wei Dai

    (University of Calgary)

  • Kam Yu

    (Lakehead University)

Abstract

We test the concept of contestability in the digital music player market. The theory suggests that the threat of new entrants keeps firms’ market power in check. But Baumol and others argue that pure contestable markets rarely happen in reality. The portable music player market has been dominated by one producer. We estimate a quality-adjusted price index from 2002 to 2010. Results show that market prices decline at an average rate of about 20 percent per year, which is similar to other IT products. This provides support for the idea that the market is fairly contestable.

Suggested Citation

  • Wei Dai & Kam Yu, 2019. "Contestability in the Digital Music Player Market," Journal of Industry, Competition and Trade, Springer, vol. 19(2), pages 293-311, June.
    • Handle: RePEc:kap:jincot:v:19:y:2019:i:2:d:10.1007_s10842-018-0284-5
    DOI: 10.1007/s10842-018-0284-5
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s10842-018-0284-5
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1007/s10842-018-0284-5?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Bryan Pon & Timo Seppälä & Martin Kenney, 2015. "One Ring to Unite Them All: Convergence, the Smartphone, and the Cloud," Journal of Industry, Competition and Trade, Springer, vol. 15(1), pages 21-33, March.
    2. Dan Breznitz & Martin Kenney & Petri Rouvinen & John Zysman & Pekka Ylä-Anttila, 2011. "Value Capture and Policy Design in a Digital Economy," Journal of Industry, Competition and Trade, Springer, vol. 11(3), pages 203-207, September.
    3. Joseph E. Stiglitz, 1987. "Technological Change, Sunk Costs, and Competition," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 18(3, Specia), pages 883-947.
    4. Shepherd, William G, 1984. ""Contestability" vs. Competition," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 74(4), pages 572-587, September.
    5. Martin Kenney & Petri Rouvinen & John Zysman, 2015. "The Digital Disruption and its Societal Impacts," Journal of Industry, Competition and Trade, Springer, vol. 15(1), pages 1-4, March.
    6. Kenji Kushida & Jonathan Murray & John Zysman, 2015. "Cloud Computing: From Scarcity to Abundance," Journal of Industry, Competition and Trade, Springer, vol. 15(1), pages 5-19, March.
    7. Ernst R. Berndt & Neal J. Rappaport, 2001. "Price and Quality of Desktop and Mobile Personal Computers: A Quarter-Century Historical Overview," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 91(2), pages 268-273, May.
    8. Marc Prud'homme & Dimitri Sanga & Kam Yu, 2005. "A computer software price index using scanner data," Canadian Journal of Economics, Canadian Economics Association, vol. 38(3), pages 999-1017, August.
    9. Sutton, John, 1996. "Technology and market structure," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 40(3-5), pages 511-530, April.
    10. Joseph E. Stiglitz & G. Frank Mathewson (ed.), 1986. "New Developments in the Analysis of Market Structure," MIT Press Books, The MIT Press, edition 1, volume 1, number 0262690934, April.
    11. Jack Triplett, 2004. "Handbook on Hedonic Indexes and Quality Adjustments in Price Indexes: Special Application to Information Technology Products," OECD Science, Technology and Industry Working Papers 2004/9, OECD Publishing.
    12. P. D. Chwelos & E. R. Berndt & I. M. Cockburn, 2008. "Faster, smaller, cheaper: an hedonic price analysis of PDAs," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 40(22), pages 2839-2856.
    13. Kam Yu & Marc Prud'homme, 2010. "Econometric issues in hedonic price indices: the case of internet service providers," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 42(15), pages 1973-1994.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Tahiru Azaaviele Liedong, 2022. "The Liability of Tribe in Corporate Political Activity: Ethical Implications for Political Contestability," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 181(3), pages 623-644, December.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Naoki Watanabe & Ryo Nakajima & Takanori Ida, 2010. "Quality-Adjusted Prices of Japanese Mobile Phone Handsets and Carriers’ Strategies," Review of Industrial Organization, Springer;The Industrial Organization Society, vol. 36(4), pages 391-412, June.
    2. Muysken, J. & Zwick, Th., 1996. "Insider power breeds human capitalists," Research Memorandum 030, Maastricht University, Maastricht Research School of Economics of Technology and Organization (METEOR).
    3. David M. Byrne & Stephen D. Oliner & Daniel E. Sichel, 2013. "Is the Information Technology Revolution Over?," International Productivity Monitor, Centre for the Study of Living Standards, vol. 25, pages 20-36, Spring.
    4. Xosé-Luís Varela-Irimia, 2014. "Age effects, unobserved characteristics and hedonic price indexes: The Spanish car market in the 1990s," SERIEs: Journal of the Spanish Economic Association, Springer;Spanish Economic Association, vol. 5(4), pages 419-455, November.
    5. Harald Edquist, 2010. "Does hedonic price indexing change our interpretation of economic history? Evidence from Swedish electrification," Economic History Review, Economic History Society, vol. 63(2), pages 500-523, May.
    6. Dan Kovenock & Raymond Deneckere & Tom Faith & Beth Allen, 2000. "Capacity precommitment as a barrier to entry: A Bertrand-Edgeworth approach," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 15(3), pages 501-530.
    7. Haan Jan de, 2010. "Hedonic Price Indexes: A Comparison of Imputation, Time Dummy and ’Re-Pricing’ Methods," Journal of Economics and Statistics (Jahrbuecher fuer Nationaloekonomie und Statistik), De Gruyter, vol. 230(6), pages 772-791, December.
    8. Clements, Kenneth W. & Gao, Grace, 2012. "Quality, quantity, spending and prices," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 56(7), pages 1376-1391.
    9. W. Erwin Diewert & Saeed Heravi & Mick Silver, 2009. "Hedonic Imputation versus Time Dummy Hedonic Indexes," NBER Chapters, in: Price Index Concepts and Measurement, pages 161-196, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    10. David M. Byrne, 2022. "The Digital Economy and Productivity," Finance and Economics Discussion Series 2022-038, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).
    11. Paul Chwelos & Ronald Ramirez & Kenneth L. Kraemer & Nigel P. Melville, 2010. "Research Note ---Does Technological Progress Alter the Nature of Information Technology as a Production Input? New Evidence and New Results," Information Systems Research, INFORMS, vol. 21(2), pages 392-408, June.
    12. Adam Gorajek, 2018. "Econometric Perspectives on Economic Measurement," RBA Research Discussion Papers rdp2018-08, Reserve Bank of Australia.
    13. Bongers, Anelí & Torres, José L., 2014. "Technological change in U.S. jet fighter aircraft," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 43(9), pages 1570-1581.
    14. Devika Narayan, 2022. "Platform capitalism and cloud infrastructure: Theorizing a hyper-scalable computing regime," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 54(5), pages 911-929, August.
    15. Yun, Seong Hun & Kim, Yongjae & Kim, Minki, 2019. "Quality-adjusted international price comparisons of mobile telecommunications services," Telecommunications Policy, Elsevier, vol. 43(4), pages 339-352.
    16. repec:aei:rpaper:37301 is not listed on IDEAS
    17. Mick Silver, 2009. "The Hedonic Country Product Dummy Method and Quality Adjustments for Purchasing Power Parity Calculations," IMF Working Papers 2009/271, International Monetary Fund.
    18. de Palma, André & Lindsey, Robin, 2001. "Optimal timetables for public transportation," Transportation Research Part B: Methodological, Elsevier, vol. 35(8), pages 789-813, September.
    19. Kaplow, Louis & Shapiro, Carl, 2007. "Antitrust," Handbook of Law and Economics, in: A. Mitchell Polinsky & Steven Shavell (ed.), Handbook of Law and Economics, edition 1, volume 2, chapter 15, pages 1073-1225, Elsevier.
    20. Symeonidis, George, 2001. "Price Competition, Innovation and Profitability: Theory and UK Evidence," CEPR Discussion Papers 2816, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    21. David Colman, 2010. "Agriculture's terms of trade: issues and implications," Agricultural Economics, International Association of Agricultural Economists, vol. 41(s1), pages 1-15, November.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Portable music players; iPods; Contestable markets; Price index;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • L11 - Industrial Organization - - Market Structure, Firm Strategy, and Market Performance - - - Production, Pricing, and Market Structure; Size Distribution of Firms
    • C43 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Econometric and Statistical Methods: Special Topics - - - Index Numbers and Aggregation

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:kap:jincot:v:19:y:2019:i:2:d:10.1007_s10842-018-0284-5. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://springer.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.