IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/spr/inecre/v57y2022i1d10.1007_s41775-022-00138-9.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Platform competition and price discrimination

Author

Listed:
  • Neaketa Chawla

    (Brij Disa Centre of Data Science and Artificial Intelligence, Indian Institute of Management)

  • Debasis Mondal

    (Indian Institute of Technology Delhi)

Abstract

We study price discrimination strategy of an Incumbent platform that faces competition from an Entrant. We introduce heterogeneous agents on the consumer side, where buyers assign different values to the interaction benefits generated on a platform. We analyse a dominant firm equilibrium, where the incumbent platform offers two versions of its service to the consumers. The results are compared across two scenarios. The first is when sellers are allowed to multi-home and the second is when they can only join a single platform. We find that in case of multi-homing, the platform cannot charge any consumer group more than the marginal cost of the service provided to them. In the singe-homing case, the strength of indirect network effects determines the side from which platform extracts a positive surplus.

Suggested Citation

  • Neaketa Chawla & Debasis Mondal, 2022. "Platform competition and price discrimination," Indian Economic Review, Springer, vol. 57(1), pages 1-21, June.
    • Handle: RePEc:spr:inecre:v:57:y:2022:i:1:d:10.1007_s41775-022-00138-9
    DOI: 10.1007/s41775-022-00138-9
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s41775-022-00138-9
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1007/s41775-022-00138-9?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Song Lin, 2020. "Two-Sided Price Discrimination by Media Platforms," Marketing Science, INFORMS, vol. 39(2), pages 317-338, March.
    2. Mark Armstrong, 2006. "Competition in two‐sided markets," RAND Journal of Economics, RAND Corporation, vol. 37(3), pages 668-691, September.
    3. Qihong Liu & Konstantinos Serfes, 2013. "Price Discrimination in Two‐Sided Markets," Journal of Economics & Management Strategy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 22(4), pages 768-786, December.
    4. Doh-Shin Jeon & Byung-Cheol Kim & Domenico Menicucci, 2022. "Second-Degree Price Discrimination by a Two-Sided Monopoly Platform," American Economic Journal: Microeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 14(2), pages 322-369, May.
    5. Sato, Susumu, 2019. "Freemium as optimal menu pricing," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 63(C), pages 480-510.
    6. Mussa, Michael & Rosen, Sherwin, 1978. "Monopoly and product quality," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 18(2), pages 301-317, August.
    7. Caillaud, Bernard & Jullien, Bruno, 2001. "Competing cybermediaries," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 45(4-6), pages 797-808, May.
    8. Jean-Charles Rochet & Jean Tirole, 2003. "Platform Competition in Two-Sided Markets," Journal of the European Economic Association, MIT Press, vol. 1(4), pages 990-1029, June.
    9. E. Glen Weyl, 2010. "A Price Theory of Multi-sided Platforms," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 100(4), pages 1642-1672, September.
    10. Andrei Hagiu & Daniel Spulber, 2013. "First-Party Content and Coordination in Two-Sided Markets," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 59(4), pages 933-949, April.
    11. Reisinger, Markus, 2014. "Two-part tariff competition between two-sided platforms," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 68(C), pages 168-180.
    12. Bruno Jullien, 2011. "Competition in Multi-sided Markets: Divide and Conquer," American Economic Journal: Microeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 3(4), pages 186-220, November.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Jullien, Bruno & Pavan, Alessandro & Rysman, Marc, 2021. "Two-sided Markets, Pricing, and Network Effects," TSE Working Papers 21-1238, Toulouse School of Economics (TSE).
    2. Jullien, Bruno & Sand-Zantman, Wilfried, 2021. "The Economics of Platforms: A Theory Guide for Competition Policy," Information Economics and Policy, Elsevier, vol. 54(C).
    3. Yonghong Sun, 2020. "Optimal service versioning for dating platforms," Information Technology and Management, Springer, vol. 21(4), pages 217-226, December.
    4. Böhme Enrico, 2016. "Second-Degree Price Discrimination on Two-Sided Markets," Review of Network Economics, De Gruyter, vol. 15(2), pages 91-115, June.
    5. Carroni, Elias & Paolini, Dimitri, 2020. "Business models for streaming platforms: Content acquisition, advertising and users," Information Economics and Policy, Elsevier, vol. 52(C).
    6. Adachi, Takanori & Tremblay, Mark J., 2020. "Business-to-business bargaining in two-sided markets," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 130(C).
    7. Jørgen Veisdal, 2020. "The dynamics of entry for digital platforms in two-sided markets: a multi-case study," Electronic Markets, Springer;IIM University of St. Gallen, vol. 30(3), pages 539-556, September.
    8. Calvano, Emilio & Polo, Michele, 2021. "Market power, competition and innovation in digital markets: A survey," Information Economics and Policy, Elsevier, vol. 54(C).
    9. Reisinger, Markus, 2014. "Two-part tariff competition between two-sided platforms," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 68(C), pages 168-180.
    10. Reisinger, Markus, 2010. "Unique Equilibrium in Two-Part Tariff Competition between Two-Sided Platforms," Discussion Paper Series of SFB/TR 15 Governance and the Efficiency of Economic Systems 308, Free University of Berlin, Humboldt University of Berlin, University of Bonn, University of Mannheim, University of Munich.
    11. Renato Gomes & Alessandro Pavan, 2013. "Cross-Subsidization and Matching Design," Discussion Papers 1559, Northwestern University, Center for Mathematical Studies in Economics and Management Science.
    12. Marco Antonielli & Lapo Filistrucchi, 2011. "Collusion and the political differentiation of newspapers," Working Papers 11-26, NET Institute, revised Nov 2011.
    13. Jin Li & Gary Pisano & Yejia Xu & Feng Zhu, 2023. "Marketplace Scalability and Strategic Use of Platform Investment," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 69(7), pages 3958-3975, July.
    14. Doh-Shin Jeon & Nikrooz Nasr, 2016. "News Aggregators and Competition among Newspapers on the Internet," American Economic Journal: Microeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 8(4), pages 91-114, November.
    15. Peitz, Martin & Samkharadze, Lily, 2022. "Collusion between non-differentiated two-sided platforms," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 215(C).
    16. Sato, Susumu, 2019. "Freemium as optimal menu pricing," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 63(C), pages 480-510.
    17. Carrillo, Juan D. & Tan, Guofu, 2021. "Platform competition with complementary products," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 77(C).
    18. Charles Angelucci & Julia Cagé, 2019. "Newspapers in Times of Low Advertising Revenues," American Economic Journal: Microeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 11(3), pages 319-364, August.
    19. Wang, Shiying & Chen, Huimiao & Wu, Desheng, 2019. "Regulating platform competition in two-sided markets under the O2O era," International Journal of Production Economics, Elsevier, vol. 215(C), pages 131-143.
    20. Anderson, Simon P. & Gabszewicz, Jean J., 2006. "The Media and Advertising: A Tale of Two-Sided Markets," Handbook of the Economics of Art and Culture, in: V.A. Ginsburgh & D. Throsby (ed.), Handbook of the Economics of Art and Culture, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 18, pages 567-614, Elsevier.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Two-sided markets; Platforms; Network effects; Price discrimination; Platform competition;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • L1 - Industrial Organization - - Market Structure, Firm Strategy, and Market Performance
    • L11 - Industrial Organization - - Market Structure, Firm Strategy, and Market Performance - - - Production, Pricing, and Market Structure; Size Distribution of Firms

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:spr:inecre:v:57:y:2022:i:1:d:10.1007_s41775-022-00138-9. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.springer.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.