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KDI 경제교육·정보센터

ENG
  • 경제배움
  • Economic

    Information

    and Education

    Center

최신자료
Digital Media Mergers: Theory and Application to Facebook-Instagram
NBER
2025.07.18
We present a new model of competition between digital media platforms with targeted advertising. The model adds new insights around how user heterogeneity and overlap, along with user and advertiser substitution patterns, determine equilibrium ad load. We apply the model to evaluate the proposed separation of Facebook and Instagram. We estimate structural parameters using evidence on diminishing returns to advertising from a new randomized experiment and information on user overlap, diversion ratios, and price elasticity from earlier experiments. In counterfactual simulations, a Facebook-Instagram separation increases ad loads, transferring surplus from platforms and users to advertisers, with limited total surplus effects.