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Pricing strategies in two-sided platforms: The role of sellers’ competition

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María Fernanda Viecens

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Abstract

This paper offers a model of a two-sided platform to inspect how competition and prices in the seller side affect the platform’s behavior, incentives and profits. When setting prices, sellers may be constrained by one of two margins: the demand margin and the competition margin. According to the competition margin a seller sets its price equal to the marginal contribution to the users utility. However, a seller may set a lower price because it also has to take into account the demand margin: a higher price reduces the overall demand for the platform and the sellers. This central result is used to compare the efficiency of vertical integration and the private incentives to partially integrate. Several interesting insights are obtained; in particular, the model can explain the tendency of firms which operate software platforms to integrate with so-called killer applications. The paper also shows that the platform has an instrument to profitable affect sellers’ prices and to induce the margin that will bind. It is proved that the degree of competition among sellers is a crucial factor determining profitability of the platform.

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Paper provided by FEDEA in its series Working Papers with number 2009-11.

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Date of creation: Feb 2009
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Handle: RePEc:fda:fdaddt:2009-11

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  1. Mark Armstrong Author-Email: mark.armstrong@ucl.ac.uk, 2006. "Competition in Two-Sided Markets," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 37(3), pages 668-691, Autumn.
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  2. Church, Jeffrey & Gandal, Neil, 1992. "Network Effects, Software Provision, and Standardization," Journal of Industrial Economics, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 40(1), pages 85-103, March. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  3. Jeffrey Church & Neil Gandal, 2000. "Systems Competition, Vertical Merger, and Foreclosure," Journal of Economics & Management Strategy, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 9(1), pages 25-51, 03. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  4. Caillaud, Bernard & Jullien, Bruno, 2003. " Chicken & Egg: Competition among Intermediation Service Providers," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 34(2), pages 309-28, Summer.
  5. 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. [Downloadable!]
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  6. Church, Jeffrey & Gandal, Neil, 1993. "Complementary network externalities and technological adoption," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 11(2), pages 239-260, June. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  7. Jeffrey Church & Neil Gandal & David Krause, 2008. "Indirect Network Effects and Adoption Externalities," Review of Network Economics, Concept Economics, vol. 7(3), pages 337-358, September. [Downloadable!]
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  8. Kai-Uwe Kuhn & Xavier Vives, 1999. "Excess Entry, Vertical Integration, and Welfare," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 30(4), pages 575-603, Winter. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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This page was last updated on 2009-11-29.


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