Managing competition on a two-sided platform

Paul Belleflamme (1) , Martin Peitz (2, 3, 4, 5)

1 AMSE - Aix-Marseille Sciences Economiques
2 Department of Economics and MaCCI, University of Mannheim
3 CEPR - Center for Economic Policy Research
4 CESifo - Center for Economic Studies and Ifo for Economic Research
5 Centre for European Economic Research (Mannheim, Germany) - Zentrum für Europäische Wirtschaftsforschung (ZEW)

On many two-sided platforms, users on one side not only care about user participation and usage levels on the other side, but they also care about participation and usage of fellow users on the same side. Most prominent is the degree of seller competition on a platform catering to buyers and sellers. In this paper, we address how seller competition affects platform pricing, product variety, and the number of platforms that carry trade.

Mots clés: Imperfect competition; intermediation; network effects; platform competition; pricing; two-sided markets

Domaines: Economies et finances

Paul Belleflamme, Martin Peitz. Managing competition on a two-sided platform. Journal of Economics & Management Strategy, 2019, 28 (1), pp.5-22. ⟨10.1111/jems.12311⟩. ⟨hal-03590196⟩