Title: Two-Sided Partial Multi-Homing in Advertising-Financed Media Markets

Speaker: Professor Simon P. Anderson, Commonwealth Professor of Economics at the University of Virginia. His research covers advertising, search economics, media economics and product differentiation. He has published dozens of papers in top journals such as American Economic Review and authored the seminal monograph Discrete Choice Theory of Product Differentiation (MIT Press). He co-edited the Handbook of Media Economics and has held visiting positions in Australia, Singapore and Europe.

Abstract: We study platform competition with heterogeneous advertisers and endogenous single- and multi-homing by both consumers and advertisers. Consumers dislike advertising, while advertisers differ in their willingness to pay for audience reach. We show that partial multi-homing is inherently two-sided: advertiser partial multi-homing requires overlapping consumer audiences, while consumer partial multi-homing cannot be sustained unless some advertisers multi-home. Equilibrium market structures are therefore tightly constrained. In particular, symmetric partial multi-homing equilibria do not exist, and any equilibrium with partial multi-homing on both sides must be asymmetric. In such equilibria, the platform with the larger exclusive audience charges higher advertising prices and carries fewer advertisements. A Hotelling model establishes existence and delivers comparative statics linking advertising nuisance, platform differentiation, prices, and multi-homing patterns.

Date & time: 17 June 2026, 09:15 - 10:30

Venue: B321, Zhixin Building, Central Campus, SDU