• Korean journal of communication and information
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• v.37
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• pp.270-306
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• 2007

This study examines the economies of promotion gifts in the newspaper industry. Because of the oligopolistic structure, the newspaper industry shows highly concentrated market. Under the certain circumstance, the dominant firms are struggling to become the market leader by providing unlawful promotion gifts and unbearable price discount which yields the prisoner's dilemma. Ultimately, in spite of the criticism about their unlawful behaviors, the dominant firms choose the fierce competition with high costs. On the other hand, the remaining fringe firms do not have many strategic choices due to the limited financial capacity. They cannot provide free gifts or any other incentives to the subscribers. Even worse, because advertisers and subscribers also prefer promotional gifts as a rational choice, the distorted mechanism has been sustained in the newspaper industry. Thus, governmental interventions hardly achieve the goal of controlling unfair trade. This study examines the structure, strategic behaviors of the players, and the unintended consequences leading to the dilemma on promotional sales in the newspaper industry.