Two empirical issues in the analysis for the effect of free streaming on music CD and concerts

ABSTRACT

We address the two measurement issues in the analysis for the effect of free streaming on the consumption of CD and live concerts. One is measurement type for usage of free files and the other is how to measure consumption of ancillary markets, live concerts. Our results indicate that CD purchase is not affected by free streaming use, not supporting the displacement or sampling effect. Meanwhile, results clearly show that streaming use increases the expenditure for music concerts, supporting positive externality of free files. Regarding the measurement issues, we find better goodness-of-fit when we use the continuous time variable rather than the dichotomous dummy for streaming use and find a clearer externality when we use the expenditure rather than frequency for the consumption of concerts.

KEYWORDS:

• Free streaming
• CD
• music concert
• displacement effect
• externality
• measurement type

JEL CLASSIFICATION:

• L82
• L86

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.