Data and Replication Package for "The cost of banning TikTok: implications for the digital advertising market"

<b>Please refer to the "README.rtf" and "Data Details for Replication.pdf" files.</b><br><b><i>Paper Abstract</i></b><br>Social media platforms have become vital channels for businesses to reach consumers through advertising. But in the U.S., the digital advertising market in which these platforms operate is dominated by a few major players, raising concerns for antitrust regulators. In such a concentrated market, the entry or exit of a single platform can reallocate billions in ad spending, affecting businesses and users. TikTok's temporary suspension in the U.S. in January 2025 provides a unique natural experiment to examine how the removal of a major player would shift advertising demand and supply on competitors, specifically Facebook and Instagram, revealing the degree of substitutability across platforms and the intensity of competition. Using a difference-in-differences approach comparing advertising activity in the U.S. to other countries, we find that Meta ad volume and spend rose by 6.3% and 22.4%, as a result of the outage, without a corresponding increase in ad impressions. Consequently, Meta ad prices, as measured by cost per thousand impressions, jumped by 12.1%. Shifts in demand were three times greater for larger advertisers relative to smaller ones, suggesting that Meta platforms and TikTok are closer substitutes for larger firms and that a TikTok ban would therefore impose greater challenges on smaller businesses.

请参阅《README.rtf》与《Data Details for Replication.pdf》两份文件。

论文摘要
社交媒体平台已成为企业通过广告触达消费者的核心渠道。但在美国，这些平台运营所在的数字广告市场由少数头部主体主导，这引发了反垄断监管机构的担忧。在如此集中的市场格局下，单一平台的进入或退出可重新分配数十亿美元的广告预算，进而影响企业与用户。2025年1月TikTok在美国的临时封禁事件，为探究头部平台移除后，其竞争对手（具体为Facebook与Instagram）的广告供需变动情况提供了独特的自然实验场景，借此可揭示不同平台间的替代程度与竞争激烈程度。
本研究采用将美国广告活动与其他国家进行对比的双重差分法（difference-in-differences）展开分析，结果发现，受此次封禁事件影响，Meta的广告投放量与广告支出分别增长6.3%与22.4%，但广告展示量并未出现相应提升。据此，以千次展示成本（cost per thousand impressions）为衡量标准的Meta广告价格上涨了12.1%。进一步分析显示，大型广告主的需求变动幅度是小型广告主的三倍，这表明Meta平台与TikTok对大型企业而言替代性更强，因此封禁TikTok会给小型企业带来更为严峻的经营挑战。