Data brokers competition, synergic datasets, and endogenous information value
研究数据经纪商之间的竞争以及数据集协同效应如何影响数据价格和销量，并发现即使协同效应较弱，经纪商也能通过协调数据量和价格来诱导企业购买多个数据集，但协同增强时减少数据量以抑制下游竞争并提高价格，最终可能减少市场进入并损害消费者。
Data Brokers (DBs) aggregate vast amounts of data and sell them to downstream firms for customer profiling. Firms can decide to purchase data from multiple DBs, to leverage synergies that enhance profiling accuracy. We study how competition between DBs and the synergies between their datasets influence the price and quantity of data sold, and the effects in the downstream market in terms of prices and incentives to purchase from multiple DBs. We find that DBs can coordinate over the quantity and price of data sold to endogenously increase the value of data synergies and induce firms to purchase multiple datasets, even when synergies are relatively weak. As synergies increase, DBs reduce the quantity of data to temper downstream competition and charge higher prices for the data. If the number of firms is endogenous, higher data prices lead to reduced market entry and consumer harm.