市场营销学系学术讲座

时   间：2023年10月19日10:00-11:30,

地   点：思源楼 624

主   题：The Impact of Platform Commission Design on Creators’ Pricing Strategy and Productivity

主持人：庄雷 青年副研究员

主讲人：Pu Zhao  PhD candidate in quantitative marketing 波士顿大学商学院

摘   要:

We study the impact of platform commission design on creators’ pricing strategies and productivity. We use data from a leading Chinese creator platform that significantly changed its commission policies. In August 2019, the platform raised its commission from 5% to 20% simultaneously for all creators, while subsequently allowing certain eligible creators to revert the commission to the original 5%. We find that the initial simultaneous 15% commission increase led to a 3% increase in price and a 12% decrease in the number of posts published. This means creators passed through 20% of the commission increase to subscribers while compensating themselves by a significant reduction in labor output. Using a staggered difference-in-differences design, we also study the impact of eligible creators reverting to the original 5% commission. We find that treated creators whose commission reverted to 5% increased the price by 11%, the number of posts they published by 37%, and the number of questions they answered by 15%, compared to untreated creators whose commission stayed at 20%. Our findings suggest that policymakers’ attempts to regulate creators’ prices by limiting platform commissions may not be effective. A reduction in platform commission primarily boosts creators’ productivity and can even lead to unexpected price increase.

简   介:

Pu Zhao is a PhD candidate in quantitative marketing at Questrom School of Business, Boston University. His research focuses on digital platform design. He applies economics and marketing theories and mixed empirical methods to study the trade-offs of creators, their followers, and the residing platform in the digital economy context.

市场营销学系

2023-10-12