Household Internet Use: Implications for Online Competition and Market Structure

While of considerable interest to the popular and trade press, fairly little reliable information is available about the Digital Economy, or Electronic Commerce (Wycko and Colecchia (1998), Margherio (1998)). Furthermore, despite the wealth of data available to rms engaged in online exchange, academic research on its level, growth, and impact on market structure and competition has lagged behind. In part, this re ects fundamental data privacy issues and measurement di culties associated with E-Commerce as well as the whirlwind growth of viable digital businesses (Haltiwanger and Jarmin (1999)). This is unfortunate, however, as the digital economy has been likened to the industrial revolution in its proposed impact to the organization of economic activity and importance to economic growth (PD (1997)).