Econometrica

Journal Of The Econometric Society

An International Society for the Advancement of Economic
Theory in its Relation to Statistics and Mathematics

Edited by: Guido W. Imbens • Print ISSN: 0012-9682 • Online ISSN: 1468-0262

Econometrica: Sep, 2013, Volume 81, Issue 5

Dynamic Product Positioning in Differentiated Product Markets: The Effect of Fees for Musical Performance Rights on the Commercial Radio Industry

https://doi.org/10.3982/ECTA7473
p. 1763-1803

Andrew Sweeting

This article predicts how radio station formats would change if, as was recently proposed, music stations were made to pay fees for musical performance rights. It does so by estimating and solving, using parametric approximations to firms' value functions, a dynamic model that captures important features of the industry such as vertical and horizontal product differentiation, demographic variation in programming tastes, and multi‐station ownership. The estimated model predicts that high fees would cause the number of music stations to fall significantly and quite quickly. For example, a fee equal to 10% of revenues would cause a 4.6% drop in the number of music stations within 2 1/2 years, and a 9.4% drop in the long run. The size of the change is limited, however, by the fact that many listeners, particularly in demographics that are valued by advertisers, have strong preferences for music programming.


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Supplemental Material

Supplement to "Dynamic Product Positioning in Differentiated Product Markets: The Effect of Fees for Musical Performance Rights on the Commercial Radio Industry"

This zip file contains MATLAB code used to estimate and solve the model.  The file also contains data that can be used to estimate the parameters, although the share and revenue data has been permuted in accordance with my agreement with the company providing the data.

Supplement to "Dynamic Product Positioning in Differentiated Product Markets: The Effect of Fees for Musical Performance Rights on the Commercial Radio Industry"

This file contains 4 Appendices.  Appendix A lists the variables in the state space, while Appendices B-D contain details of the methods used to estimate and solve the model.