Publications

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Working Paper

Visual Uniqueness in Peer-to-Peer Marketplaces: Machine Learning Model Development, Validation, and Application

By: Flora Feng, Charis Li and Shunyuan Zhang

Peer-to-peer (P2P) marketplaces have seen exponential growth in recent years featured by unique offerings from individual providers. Despite the perceived value of uniqueness, scalable quantification of visual uniqueness in P2P platforms like Airbnb has been largely... View Details

Keywords: Peer-to-peer Markets; Marketplace Matching; AI and Machine Learning; Demand and Consumers; Digital Platforms; Marketing

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July 2021
Article

Outsourcing Tasks Online: Matching Supply and Demand on Peer-to-Peer Internet Platforms

By: Zoë Cullen and Chiara Farronato

We study the growth of online peer-to-peer markets. Using data from TaskRabbit, an expanding marketplace for domestic tasks at the time of our study, we show that growth varies considerably across cities. To disentangle the potential drivers of growth, we look... View Details

Keywords: Two-sided Market; Two-sided Platforms; Peer-to-peer Markets; Platform Strategy; Sharing Economy; Platform Growth; Internet and the Web; Digital Platforms; Strategy; Market Design; Network Effects

2007
Working Paper

Bandwidth Allocation in Peer-to-Peer Filesharing Networks

By: Albert Creus-Mir, Ramon Casadesus-Masanell and Andres Hervas-Drane

We present a model of bandwidth allocation in a stylized peer-to-peer file sharing network with s peers (sharers) who share files and download from each other and f peers (freeriders) who download from sharers but do not contribute files. Assuming that upload bandwidth... View Details

Keywords: Information Infrastructure; Resource Allocation

February 2008
Article

Bandwidth Allocation in Peer-to-Peer File Sharing Networks

By: Albert Creus Mir, Ramon Casadesus-Masanell and Andres Hervas-Drane

We present a model of bandwidth allocation in a stylized peer-to-peer file sharing network. Given an arbitrary population of peers composed of sharers and freeriders, where all peers interconnect to maximize their allocated bandwidth, we derive the expected bandwidth... View Details

Keywords: Information Infrastructure; Resource Allocation

16 Apr 2007
Research & Ideas

Delivering the Digital Goods: iTunes vs. Peer-to-Peer

Apple boasts that more than one billion songs have been purchased from its iTunes music service. That sounds like a great number—until you consider that an estimated ten million users of Internet-based peer-to-peer (p2p) networks are... View Details

Keywords: by Sean Silverthorne; Music

March 2009 (Revised September 2011)
Case

Zopa: The Power of Peer-to-Peer Lending

By: Mikolaj Jan Piskorski, Isabel Fernandez-Mateo and David Chen

Zopa, a U.K.-based peer-to-peer lending company, connected individual lenders and borrowers via an online interface. The company charged a small fee for completed loan transactions but has not turned a profit. Zopa offered two platforms, Markets and Listings. Markets... View Details

Keywords: Financing and Loans; Personal Finance; Market Participation; Digital Platforms; Social and Collaborative Networks; Financial Services Industry; United Kingdom

Spring 2014
Article

Leveraging Crowdsourced Peer-to-Peer Assessments to Enhance the Case Method of Learning

By: Jill Avery

Many marketing educators use the case method to help their students strengthen their decision-making skills. Rigorous class participation is essential to achieving learning objectives in case method learning. One challenge for case method instructors is the assessment... View Details

Keywords: Case Method Teaching; Marketing; Business Education; Teaching; Education Industry

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Article

Peer-to-Peer File Sharing and the Market for Digital Information Goods

By: Ramon Casadesus-Masanell and Andres Hervas-Drane

We study competitive interaction between two alternative models of digital content distribution over the Internet: peer-to-peer (p2p) file sharing and centralized client-server distribution. We present microfoundations for a stylized model of p2p file sharing where all... View Details

Keywords: Competition; Distribution; Internet and the Web; Information Infrastructure; Management Analysis, Tools, and Techniques; Strategy; Profit; Price; Performance Efficiency

January 2006 (Revised March 2010)
Case

Peer-to-Peer File Sharing and the Market for Digital Information Goods

By: Ramon Casadesus-Masanell, Andres Hervas and Jordan Mitchell

We study competitive interaction between two alternative models of digital content distribution over the Internet: peer-to-peer (p2p) file sharing and centralized client-server distribution. We present microfoundations for a stylized model of p2p file sharing where all... View Details

Keywords: Price; Profit; Distribution; Competition; Internet and the Web; Information Infrastructure

July 2016
Case

Disintermediating the Banks: ThinCats and the Peer-to-Peer Lending Industry

By: Lauren Cohen, Tom Grant, Christopher Malloy and William Powley

2007
Working Paper

Peer-to-Peer File Sharing and the Market for Digital Information Goods

By: Ramon Casadesus-Masanell and Andres Hervas-Drane

March 2006 (Revised March 2010)
Teaching Note

Peer-to-Peer File Sharing and the Market for Digital Information Goods (TN)

By: Ramon Casadesus-Masanell, Andres Hervas-Drane and Jordan Mitchell

Keywords: Information Technology

Research Summary

Overview

By: Chiara Farronato

Based on a broad interest in the economics of innovation and the Internet, Professor Farronato concentrates her research on the evolution of e-commerce and peer-to-peer online platforms, including platform adoption, economies of scale, and drivers of heterogeneous... View Details

28 Mar 2018
Research & Ideas

Sophisticated Investors May Be Harming Fintech Lending Platforms

iPhoto Marketplace lending platforms such as LendingClub and Prosper have made significant competitive inroads against traditional banks in recent years by bringing together people who want to borrow with investors ready to bankroll them. But lending platforms, also... View Details

Keywords: by Dina Gerdeman; Banking; Financial Services

April 2006 (Revised August 2007)
Case

BitTorrent

Involves the copyright issues associated with Bram Cohen's revolutionary software program BitTorrent, which makes it possible to transfer very large files, such as movies, at a high speed over the Internet. The program, which is available for free over the Internet, is... View Details

Keywords: Lawfulness; Lawsuits and Litigation; Applications and Software; Copyright; Internet and the Web

2010
Article

Competing against Online Sharing

By: Ramon Casadesus-Masanell and Andres Hervas-Drane

This paper aims to explore online sharing of copyrighted content over peer-to-peer (p2p) file sharing networks and its impact on the music industry and to assess the viable business models for the industry in the future. View Details

Keywords: Consumers; Computer Networks; Resource Sharing; Online Operations; Internet and the Web; Copyright; Networks; Business Model; Music Industry

September 2006 (Revised August 2007)
Case

Warner Bros. and BitTorrent

Involves the copyright issues associated with Bram Cohen's revolutionary program BitTorrent, which makes it possible to transfer very large files, such as movies, at a high speed over the Internet. The program, which is available for free over the Internet, is used for... View Details

Keywords: Technological Innovation; Copyright; Lawfulness; Distribution; Internet and the Web; Motion Pictures and Video Industry