We analyze whether and how the fact that products are not sold on open or public platforms but on competing for-profit platforms affects sellers’ investment incentives. Investments in cost reduction, quality, or marketing measures are here the joint and coordinated efforts by sellers. We show that, in general, for-profit intermediation is not neutral to such investment incentives. As for-profit intermediaries reduce the rents that are available in the market, one might suspect that sellers have weaker investment incentives with competing for-profit platforms. However, this is not necessarily the case. The reason is that investment incentives affect the size of the network effects and thus competition between intermediaries. In particular, we show that whether for-profit intermediation raises or lowers investment incentives depends on which side of the market singlehomes.
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Paper provided by C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers in its series CEPR Discussion Papers with number
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References listed on IDEAS Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.:
Jean-Charles Rochet Author-Email: rochet@cict.fr Author-Workplace-Name: IDEI, University of Toulouse & Jean Tirole Author-Email: tirole@cict.fr Author-Workplace-Name: IDEI, University of Toulouse, 2006.
"Two-Sided Markets: A Progress Report,"
RAND Journal of Economics,
The RAND Corporation, vol. 37(3), pages 645-667, Autumn.
Volker Nocke & Martin Peitz & Konrad Stahl, 2004.
"Platform Ownership,"
PIER Working Paper Archive
04-029, Penn Institute for Economic Research, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania.
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Other versions:
Volker Nocke & Martin Peitz & Konrad Stahl, 2004.
"Platform Ownership,"
Discussion Papers
16, SFB/TR 15 Governance and the Efficiency of Economic Systems, Free University of Berlin, Humboldt University of Berlin, University of Bonn, University of Mannheim, University of Munich.
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Cited by: (explanations, Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.)
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