The Antitrust Analysis of Multi-Sided Platform Businesses / David S. Evans, Richard Schmalensee.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Evans, David S.

Contributor:

National Bureau of Economic Research.

Schmalensee, Richard.

Series:

Working Paper Series (National Bureau of Economic Research) no. w18783.

NBER working paper series no. w18783

Language:

English

Physical Description:

1 online resource: illustrations (black and white);

Place of Publication:

Cambridge, Mass. National Bureau of Economic Research 2013.

Summary:

This Chapter provides a survey of the economics literature on multi-sided platforms with particular focus on competition policy issues, including market definition, mergers, monopolization, and coordinated behavior. It provides a survey of the general industrial organization theory of multi-sided platforms and then considers various issues concerning the application of antitrust analysis to multi-sided platform businesses. It shows that it is not possible to know whether standard economic models, often relied on for antitrust analysis, apply to multi-sided platforms without explicitly considering the existence of multiple customer groups with interdependent demand. It summarizes many theoretical and empirical papers that demonstrate that a number of results for single-sided firms, which are the focus of much of the applied antitrust economics literature, do not apply directly to multi-sided platforms.

Notes:

Print version record

February 2013.