This paper explores how digitization and the associated use of customer data have affected the evolution of consumer privacy concerns. We measure privacy concerns by reluctance to disclose income in an online marketing research survey. Using over three million responses over eight years, our data show: (1) Refusals to reveal information have risen over time, (2) Older people are less likely to reveal information, and (3) The difference between older and younger people has increased over time. Our results suggest that the trends over time are partly due to broadening perceptions of the contexts in which privacy is relevant.

Digital technology is the representation of information in bits. This technology has reduced the cost of storage, computation, and transmission of data. Research on digital economics examines whether and how digital technology changes economic activity. In this review, we emphasize the reduction in five distinct economic costs associated with digital economic activity: search costs, replication costs, transportation costs, tracking costs, and verification costs.

We examine US local telephone markets shortly after the Telecommunications Act of 1996. The data suggest that more experienced, better-educated managers tend to enter markets with fewer competitors. This motivates a structural econometric model based on behavioral game theory that allows heterogeneity in managers' ability to conjecture competitor behavior. We find that manager characteristics are key determinants in managerial ability. This estimate of ability predicts out-of-sample success. Also, the measured level of ability rises following a shakeout, suggesting that our behavioral assumptions may be most relevant early in the industry's life cycle.

We document that the Bay Area rose from 4% of all successful US patent applications in 1976 to 16% in 2008. This is partly driven by the increase in the prevalence of information and communication technology; however, even for patents unrelated to information and communication technology, we see a disproportionate increase in the share of US patents from the Bay Area. We interpret this growth as a trend to coagglomeration in invention across technologies, and explore different dimensions of this trend.