IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/aea/aejmic/v3y2011i4p186-220.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Competition in Multi-sided Markets: Divide and Conquer

Author

Listed:
  • Bruno Jullien

Abstract

This paper studies Stackelberg price competition in a multi-sided market. The second-mover can engage in divide-and-conquer strategies, which involve cross-subsidies between sides. The paper recovers bounds on profits, and refines the results with a selection criteria whereby consumers resolve coordination failure in favor of a focal platform. It then analyzes perfect price discrimination with network effects, and two-sided market, shedding light on inefficiencies and strategic choices by platforms. A leading platform may refrain from selling to some side in order to soften competition, it tends to favor excessively balanced market shares and may prefer compatibility to reduce price competition. (JEL D43, D85)

Suggested Citation

  • 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.
    • Handle: RePEc:aea:aejmic:v:3:y:2011:i:4:p:186-220
    Note: DOI: 10.1257/mic.3.4.186
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.aeaweb.org/articles.php?doi=10.1257/mic.3.4.186
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to AEA members and institutional subscribers.
    ---><---

    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. Amelio, Andrea & Jullien, Bruno, 2012. "Tying and freebies in two-sided markets," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 30(5), pages 436-446.
    2. Luís Cabral, 2011. "Dynamic Price Competition with Network Effects," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 78(1), pages 83-111.
    3. Bensaid, Bernard & Lesne, Jean-Philippe, 1996. "Dynamic monopoly pricing with network externalities," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 14(6), pages 837-855, October.
    4. Jorge A, Ferrando & Jean J, Gabszewicz & Didier Laussel & Nathalie Sonnac, 2004. "Two-Sided Network Effects and Competition : An Application to Media Industries," Working Papers 2004-09, Center for Research in Economics and Statistics.
    5. Segal, Ilya, 2003. "Coordination and discrimination in contracting with externalities: divide and conquer?," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 113(2), pages 147-181, December.
    6. Innes, Robert & Sexton, Richard J., 1993. "Customer coalitions, monopoly price discrimination and generic entry deterrence," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 37(8), pages 1569-1597, December.
    7. Simon P. Anderson & Stephen Coate, 2005. "Market Provision of Broadcasting: A Welfare Analysis," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 72(4), pages 947-972.
    8. David, Paul A, 1985. "Clio and the Economics of QWERTY," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 75(2), pages 332-337, May.
    9. Jean-Charles Rochet & Jean Tirole, 2002. "Cooperation Among Competitors: Some Economics Of Payment Card Associations," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 33(4), pages 549-570, Winter.
    10. Ettore Damiano & Hao Li, 2007. "Price discrimination and efficient matching," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 30(2), pages 243-263, February.
    11. Julian Wright, 2002. "Access Pricing under Competition: An Application to Cellular Networks," Journal of Industrial Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 50(3), pages 289-315, September.
    12. Jean‐Charles Rochet & Jean Tirole, 2006. "Two‐sided markets: a progress report," RAND Journal of Economics, RAND Corporation, vol. 37(3), pages 645-667, September.
    13. Rossella Argenziano, 2008. "Differentiated networks: equilibrium and efficiency," RAND Journal of Economics, RAND Corporation, vol. 39(3), pages 747-769, September.
    14. 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.
    15. Mark Armstrong Author-Email: mark.armstrong@ucl.ac.uk Author-Workplace-Name: University College of London, 2006. "Competition in Two-Sided Markets," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 37(3), pages 668-691, Autumn.
    16. Arthur, W Brian, 1989. "Competing Technologies, Increasing Returns, and Lock-In by Historical Events," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 99(394), pages 116-131, March.
    17. Alexander White & E. Glen Weyl, 2010. "Imperfect Platform Competition: A General Framework," Working Papers 10-17, NET Institute, revised Nov 2010.
    18. Katz, Michael L & Shapiro, Carl, 1986. "Technology Adoption in the Presence of Network Externalities," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 94(4), pages 822-841, August.
    19. Andrei Hagiu, 2006. "Pricing and Commitment by Two-Sided Platforms," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 37(3), pages 720-737, Autumn.
    20. Katz, Michael L & Shapiro, Carl, 1992. "Product Introduction with Network Externalities," Journal of Industrial Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 40(1), pages 55-83, March.
    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, 2008. "Price Skewness and Competition in Multi-Sided Markets," IDEI Working Papers 504, Institut d'Économie Industrielle (IDEI), Toulouse.
    3. David S. Evans & Richard Schmalensee, 2013. "The Antitrust Analysis of Multi-Sided Platform Businesses," NBER Working Papers 18783, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    4. Jullien, Bruno, 2001. "Competing with Network Externalities and Price Discrimination," CEPR Discussion Papers 2883, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    5. 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.
    6. Jeon, Doh-Shin & Jullien, Bruno & Klimenko, Mikhail, 2021. "Language, internet and platform competition," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 131(C).
    7. Pekka S��skilahti, 2015. "Monopoly Pricing of Social Goods," International Journal of the Economics of Business, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 22(3), pages 429-448, November.
    8. Doh-Shin Jeon & Jean-Charles Rochet, 2010. "The Pricing of Academic Journals: A Two-Sided Market Perspective," American Economic Journal: Microeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 2(2), pages 222-255, May.
    9. Jullien, Bruno, 2010. "Two-Sided B2B Platforms," TSE Working Papers 11-223, Toulouse School of Economics (TSE), revised Mar 2011.
    10. Hakan Ozalp & Carmelo Cennamo & Annabelle Gawer, 2018. "Disruption in Platform‐Based Ecosystems," Journal of Management Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 55(7), pages 1203-1241, November.
    11. E. Glen Weyl, 2010. "A Price Theory of Multi-sided Platforms," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 100(4), pages 1642-1672, September.
    12. Julien Gosse & Charles Hoffreumon & Nicolas van Zeebroeck & Jacques Bughin, 2020. "The Value of Platform Strategy. It's the Ecosystem. Stupid!," iCite Working Papers 2020-033, ULB -- Universite Libre de Bruxelles.
    13. Renato Gomes & Alessandro Pavan, 2013. "Cross-Subsidization and Matching Design," Discussion Papers 1559, Northwestern University, Center for Mathematical Studies in Economics and Management Science.
    14. Renato Gomes & Alessandro Pavan, 2011. "Price Discrimination in Many-to-Many Matching Markets," Discussion Papers 1540, Northwestern University, Center for Mathematical Studies in Economics and Management Science.
    15. Galeotti, Andrea & Moraga-González, José Luis, 2009. "Platform intermediation in a market for differentiated products," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 53(4), pages 417-428, May.
    16. Choi, Jay Pil & Jeon, Doh-Shin, 2016. "A Leverage Theory of Tying in Two-Sided Markets," TSE Working Papers 16-689, Toulouse School of Economics (TSE), revised Oct 2019.
    17. Mark J. McCabe & Christopher M. Snyder, 2018. "Open Access as a Crude Solution to a Hold‐Up Problem in the Two‐Sided Market for Academic Journals," Journal of Industrial Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 66(2), pages 301-349, June.
    18. Nathan Delacrétaz & Bruno Lanz & Jeremy van Dijk, 2020. "The chicken or the egg: Technology adoption and network infrastructure in the market for electric vehicles," IRENE Working Papers 20-08, IRENE Institute of Economic Research.
    19. Jeon, Doh-Shin & Jullien, Bruno & Klimenko, Mikhail, 2012. "Language, Internet and Platform Competition: the case of Search Engine," IDEI Working Papers 742, Institut d'Économie Industrielle (IDEI), Toulouse.
    20. Choi, Jay Pil & Jeon, Doh-Shin, 2020. "Platform Design Biases in Two-Sided Markets," TSE Working Papers 20-1143, Toulouse School of Economics (TSE).

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • D43 - Microeconomics - - Market Structure, Pricing, and Design - - - Oligopoly and Other Forms of Market Imperfection
    • D85 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Network Formation

    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:aea:aejmic:v:3:y:2011:i:4:p:186-220. 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: Michael P. Albert (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/aeaaaea.html .

    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.