Management Information Systems Commons^™

An Economic Analysis Of The Online Counterfeit Market And The Impact Of Anti-Counterfeit Technology, Xiong Zhang, Zhiling Guo, Wei Thoo Yue

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Counterfeiting causes hundreds of billions dollars of losses around the world every year. Due to the growing prominence of online commerce, the seriousness of the situation could soon become much worse. Hence, reaching a clear understanding of the fundamental economic incentives behind this practice is of vital importance. In this paper, we investigate a problem within which a firm selling a counterfeit product engages in price competition with a firm that sells an authentic product to a population of heterogeneous consumers. An online intermediary acts as the facilitator of both firms’ transactions and may consequently be liable for any counterfeit …