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American Economic Review Vol. 114 No. 2 2024

Pricing Power in Advertising Markets: Theory and Evidence

Matthew Gentzkow1; Jesse M. Shapiro2; Frank Yang3; Ali Yurukoglu1

1 Stanford University and NBER (email: ) · 2 Harvard University and NBER (email: ) · 3 Stanford University (email: )

Abstract

Existing theories of media competition imply that advertisers will pay a lower price in equilibrium to reach consumers who multi-home across competing outlets. We generalize and extend this theoretical result and test it using data from television and social media advertising. We find that the model is a good match, qualitatively and quantitatively, to variation in advertising prices across demographic groups, outlets, platforms, and over time. We use the model to quantify the effects of competition within and across platforms.

DOI
10.1257/aer.20220943
Volume
114
Issue
2
Pages
500-533
Language
en
Sources
openalex bibtex:phds-export.bib crossref

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