How Do Digital Advertising Auctions Impact Product Prices?
研究数字广告拍卖中，平台利用数据优势的两种机制（数据增强拍卖与管理活动）对产品价格和消费者福利的影响，发现平台最优的管理活动会提高平台外产品价格、降低消费者剩余。
Abstract We present a model of digital advertising with three key features: (1) advertisers can reach consumers on and off a platform, (2) additional data enhances the value of advertiser–consumer matches, and (3) the allocation of advertisements follows an auction-like mechanism. We contrast data-augmented auctions, which leverage the platform’s data advantage to improve match quality, with managed-campaign mechanisms that automate match formation and price-setting. The platform-optimal mechanism is a managed campaign that conditions the on-platform prices for sponsored products on the off-platform prices set by all advertisers. This mechanism yields the efficient on-platform allocation but inefficiently high off-platform product prices. It attains the vertical integration profit for the platform and the advertisers, and it increases off-platform product prices while decreasing consumer surplus, relative to data-augmented auctions.