A Replication of Four Quasi-Experiments and Three Facts from ‘The Effect of File Sharing on Record Sales: An Empirical Analysis’ (Journal of Political Economy, 2007)

Abstract

The influential piracy paper by Professors Oberholzer-Gee and Strumpf, although mainly based on proprietary data, contained an “important complement” to the main results, consisting of four “quasi-experiments” using publicly available data. This replication examines all of these quasi-experiments by using identical data and statistical methods where possible, as well as sometimes extending or augmenting the data or methods. This study concludes that the quasi-experiments performed by OS each contain important errors, oversights or inconsistencies that most often, but not completely, overturn the results claimed in the original OS article.

More than Sound: Record Stores in Majority Black Neighborhoods in Chicago, Milwaukee, and Detroit, 1970–2010

“…By 2015 revenues were lower than any other year going back at least to 1973 (when adjusting for inflation). While the beginning of this fall coincides with the advent of peer-to-peer file-sharing, researchers disagree on just how large the negative effect of file-sharing is on record industry revenues (see Liebowitz 2017;Oberholzer-Gee and Strumpf 2007). Based on this information, I hypothesize that the odds of record store failure are higher in the ten-year periods 1980-1990 and 2000-2010 than 1970-1980.…”