The Antitrust Analysis of Multi-Sided Platform Businesses

David Evans and Richard Schmalensee

No 18783, NBER Working Papers from National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc

Abstract: 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.

JEL-codes: L19 L40 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2013-02
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-com, nep-hme, nep-ind and nep-net
Note: IO
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (45)

Published as David Evans and Richard Schmalensee The Oxford Handbook of International Antitrust Economics, Volume 1 Edited by Roger D. Blair and D. Daniel Sokol Print Publication Date: Dec 2014 Subject: Economics and Finance, Law and Economics, Industrial Organization

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