2025/11/30 by Kfir Eliaz, Eliaz, Kfir, Ran Spiegler +1
Decision Sciences · Business, Management and Accounting · #Auction Theory and Applications #Consumer Market Behavior and Pricing #Digital Platforms and Economics
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.2512.00897
A profit-maximizing monopolist curates a database for users seeking to learn a parameter. There are two user types: "Nowcasters" wish to learn the parameter's current value, while "forecasters" target its long-run value. Data storage involves a constant marginal cost. The monopolist designs a menu of contracts described by fees and data-access levels. The profit-maximizing menu offers full access to historical data, while current data is fully provided to nowcasters but may be withheld from forecasters. Compared to the social optimum, the monopolist keeps too much historical data, too little current data, and may store too much data overall.