The competitive landscape of online platforms

Nestor Duch-Brown ()
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Nestor Duch-Brown: European Commission JRC, https://joint-research-centre.ec.europa.eu/index_en
Authors registered in the RePEc Author Service: Néstor Duch Brown

No 2017-04, JRC Working Papers on Digital Economy from Joint Research Centre

Abstract: This paper describes the different forces that shape the market structure of four different 'online platform ecosystems' and the competition between them. The paper focuses on the following categories of platforms, which represent a wide scope of online activities: (i) e-commerce marketplaces; (ii) app stores; (iii) social media; and (iv) online advertising platforms. A central concern is to provide descriptive, empirical evidence on the relative strength of the forces operating in each case. In the past decade or so, many theoretical and conceptual contributions have been very helpful in developing a clear understanding of many of the issues around multi-sided markets, and have analysed these activities from many different perspectives. Unfortunately, they have provided hardly any empirical evidence. This paper attempts to reduce the lack of empirical evidence available on online platforms.

Keywords: digital single market; data economy; online platforms; multi-sided markets (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D23 K11 K12 L86 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 40 pages
Date: 2017-07
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-com, nep-ict, nep-mkt and nep-pay
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (6)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ipt:decwpa:2017-04

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