Antoine Dubus


Last Name

Dubus

First Name

Antoine

ORCID

0000-0001-5726-155X

Organisational unit

03988 - Köthenbürger, Marko / Köthenbürger, Marko

Filters

2021 - 202628
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Publications 1 - 10 of 28
  • The Sale of Data: Learning Synergies Before M&As
    Item type: Other Conference Item
    Dubus, Antoine; Legros, Patrick (2024)
  • Data-Driven Mergers with Information Synergies
    Item type: Other Conference Item
    Dubus, Antoine; Legros, Patrick (2021)
  • The Sale of Data: Learning Synergies Before M&A
    Item type: Other Conference Item
    Dubus, Antoine; Legros, Patrick (2024)
  • Behavior-based algorithmic pricing
    Item type: Journal Article
    Dubus, Antoine (2024)
    Information Economics and Policy
    This article studies the impact of algorithmic pricing on market competition when firms collect data to charge personalized prices to their past customers. Pricing algorithms offer to each firm a rich set of pricing strategies combining first and third-degree price discrimination: they can choose for each of their past customers whether to charge them personalized or homogeneous prices. The optimal targeting strategy of each firm consists in charging personalized prices to past customers with the highest willingness to pay and a homogeneous price to the remaining consumers, including past customers with a low valuation on whom a firm has information. This targeting strategy maximizes rent extraction while softening competition between firms compared to classical models where firms target all past customers. In turn, price-undercutting and poaching practices are not sustainable with behavior-based algorithmic pricing, resulting in greater industry profits.
  • The Signaling Value of Simplicity
    Item type: Working Paper
    Dolecek, Roman; Dubus, Antoine; Sahuguet, Nicolas; et al. (2025)
    Complex signals are often misunderstood by their receivers, leading to failures of information transmission in signaling games. In this study, we introduce novel methods to systematically assess the complexity of a wide range of signals, using the concepts of theoretical and analogical complexity. Theoretical complexity measures the amount of information a signal contains when compressed, while analogical complexity captures its social relevance. To illustrate our approach, we analyze data from the sale of license plates in Switzerland, where specific numbers serve as indicators of social status. By evaluating both the theoretical and analogical complexity of all license plates, we show that plates with simpler designs tend to sell for higher prices. Our findings suggest that simplicity is a key factor of a signal’s perceived value, offering broader implications for signaling theory and decision-making in contexts involving complex reasoning.
  • Competition and Mergers with Strategic Data Intermediaries
    Item type: Other Conference Item
    Dubus, Antoine (2021)
  • Market for Information and Selling Mechanisms
    Item type: Working Paper
    Bounie, David; Dubus, Antoine; Waelbroeck, Patrick (2022)
    Economics Working Paper Series
    A monopolist data intermediary collects consumer information that it strategically sells to competing firms in a product market for price discrimination purposes. The intermediary charges a price of information and chooses the optimal partition that maximizes the willingness to pay of firms for information. Different selling mechanisms are compared: list prices, sequential bargaining, and auctions. The intermediary optimally sells information through auctions, whereas consumer surplus is maximized with sequential bargaining and list prices. We discuss the regulatory implications of our results.
  • Trade in Data: Regulating Cross-Border Data Flows
    Item type: Working Paper
    Dubus, Antoine; Köthenbürger, Marko; Parenti, Mathieu; et al. (2026)
    Multinational companies can enhance product quality worldwide using data collected in different countries. Central to the ability of firms to improve their products is the decision of countries to allow data flows across borders. We analyze the impact of restrictions on international data openness on market structure, welfare, and the demand for policy coordination. When a country allows its data to flow across borders: (i) consumer utility is shifted upward by a data-driven network effect; (ii) firms lower their prices to reach a larger demand and be more competitive by enjoying a stronger network effect, which increases consumption and benefits consumers; (iii) the number of varieties decreases, which may lower welfare overall. By allowing firms to export data, a country exerts a negative externality on the rest of the world: consumers abroad benefit from higher per product utility, but openness also lowers the number of varieties, which can reduce welfare in foreign countries. Therefore, even when policymakers unilaterally restrict the outgoing flows of data to protect domestic consumer privacy, they may set a degree of openness above the global optimum, requiring a data-sharing agreement restricting further cross border data flows to maximize global welfare. We provide policy implications of our results in the context of the ongoing artificial intelligence revolution.
  • Collecting and selling consumer information: Selling mechanisms matter
    Item type: Journal Article
    Bounie, David; Dubus, Antoine; Waelbroeck, Patrick (2025)
    International Journal of Industrial Organization
    This article analyzes how take-it-or-leave-it offers (TIOLI) and auctions impact the selling strategy of a data intermediary, the price of information and the amount of consumer data collected. TIOLI leads to a higher consumer surplus compared to auctions, but encourages the intermediary to collect more consumer information than auctions, which is detrimental to consumer privacy. We discuss regulatory measures to protect at the same time consumer surplus and privacy.
  • Competition and the two margins of privacy
    Item type: Journal Article
    Bounie, David; Dubus, Antoine; Waelbroeck, Patrick (2025)
    International Review of Law and Economics
    This article analyzes the relationship between privacy protection and market competition. We consider a model where firms collect data to price discriminate consumers in a competitive product market, and we distinguish two margins of privacy. Firms strategically choose the number of consumers on whom they collect data – the extensive margin of privacy – as well as the precision of information – the intensive margin of privacy. We show that policymakers can efficiently protect both margins of privacy and consumer surplus by safeguarding the intensive margin. Indeed, when both strategic variables are strategic complements, restricting the amount of information that firms have on each consumer (the intensive margin) also induces firms to collect data on fewer consumers, thereby protecting the extensive margin of privacy. This softens the intensity of competition but also reduces rent extraction by firms, and total consumer surplus increases. When both variables are strategic substitutes, protecting the intensive margin harms privacy at the extensive margin, but still increases consumer surplus.
Publications 1 - 10 of 28