Demand for in-app purchases in mobile apps—A difference-in-difference approach

Using five “freemium” mobile app games on six European markets we examine the effect of price changes on conversion rate, number of users and viewing of rewarded videos. Our difference-in-difference estimation relies on games being available on both the Apple and Google platforms with price changes on only one platform. Our main identification comes from exogenous adjustments of Apples prices in 2021. Own-price elasticities of conversion are in the -1 to -4 range. Watching of rewarded videos decreases as in-app prices decrease with an average elasticity of around 0.5, but overall play is not affected by changes in-app prices.     

Flexible spectrum management for mobile broadband services: How does it vary across advanced and emerging markets?

Demand for wireless data and Internet services are expected to grow exponentially, both in advanced and emerging markets in the near future. While advanced countries have often used centralized planning and coordination methodology to forecast and allocate the associated spectrum blocks to wireless operators for meeting the demand, it is often ad-hoc in emerging markets dictated by market forces. In this paper, Finland and India are taken to represent advanced and emerging markets, respectively. Different policy options and the policy environment in these two countries for spectrum management are explored. A causal model is constructed to represent the different variables that affect spectrum management practices and possible paths forward in these two extreme cases are highlighted. Using the causal model structure, it is hypothesized that (i) the matured markets such as Finland that practice centralized and harmonized spectrum planning are likely to continue their ex-ante policies and opt for the release of digital dividend spectrum and use of spectrally efficient technologies; (ii) the emerging market in India that is characterized by a market oriented ex-poste regulation is a good candidate to introduce secondary markets including flexible opportunistic spectrum access as exemplified by the wide spread adoption of multi-SIM handsets and the practice of national roaming by 3G service providers. Introductions of policies and regulations in these markets to break away from the extant paths are also highlighted.