IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/tse/wpaper/129700.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Platform Competition and App Development

Author

Listed:
  • Jeon, Doh-Shin
  • Rey, Patrick

Abstract

We study the development of apps on competing platforms. We show that competition leads to commissions exceeding those maximizing consumer surplus (and, a fortiori, social welfare) whenever raising one commission reduces rivals' app bases. We relate this nding to economies of scope in app development and, to illustrate it, consider a setting in which some developers can port their apps at no cost: as their proportion increases, app development is progressively choked-o. Fostering platform competition or interoperability may therefore fail to produce the desired results. Within-platform app store competition, together with appropriate access conditions, may constitute a more promising avenue.

Suggested Citation

  • Jeon, Doh-Shin & Rey, Patrick, 2024. "Platform Competition and App Development," TSE Working Papers 24-1566, Toulouse School of Economics (TSE).
    • Handle: RePEc:tse:wpaper:129700
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.tse-fr.eu/sites/default/files/TSE/documents/doc/wp/2024/wp_tse_1566.pdf
    File Function: Full Text
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Caminal, Ramon & Claici, Adina, 2007. "Are loyalty-rewarding pricing schemes anti-competitive?," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 25(4), pages 657-674, August.
    2. Belleflamme, Paul & Peitz, Martin, 2010. "Platform competition and seller investment incentives," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 54(8), pages 1059-1076, November.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Gans, Joshua S., 2024. "Three things about mobile app commissions," Information Economics and Policy, Elsevier, vol. 69(C).
    2. Axel Gautier & Leonardo Madio & Shiva Shekhar, 2025. "Network Externalities and Platform Strategy: Agency, Bundles Entry, and Integration," CESifo Working Paper Series 11711, CESifo.

    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. Man Wang & Honghui Deng & Keong G. Leong, 2023. "Innovation investment and subsidy strategy in two-sided market," Information Technology and Management, Springer, vol. 24(4), pages 337-351, December.
    2. Creti, Anna & Verdier, Marianne, 2014. "Fraud, investments and liability regimes in payment platforms," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 35(C), pages 84-93.
    3. Marc Bourreau & Frago Kourandi & Tommaso Valletti, 2015. "Net Neutrality with Competing Internet Platforms," Journal of Industrial Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 63(1), pages 30-73, March.
    4. Oksana Loginova, 2019. "Price Competition Online: Platforms vs. Branded Websites," Working Papers 1906, Department of Economics, University of Missouri.
    5. Reisinger, Markus & Zenger, Hans, 2019. "Interchange fee regulation and service investments," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 66(C), pages 40-77.
    6. Ralf Dewenter & Justus Haucap & Tobias Wenzel, 2012. "On File Sharing With Indirect Network Effects Between Concert Ticket Sales and Music Recordings," Journal of Media Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 25(3), pages 168-178, September.
    7. David Ronayne, 2021. "Price Comparison Websites," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 62(3), pages 1081-1110, August.
    8. Ariu, Andrea & Mayneris, Florian & Parenti, Mathieu, 2020. "One way to the top: How services boost the demand for goods," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 123(C).
    9. Georgios Petropoulos & Bertin Martens & Geoffrey Parker & Marshall Van Alstyne, 2023. "Platform Competition and Information Sharing," CESifo Working Paper Series 10663, CESifo.
    10. Ramon Caminal, 2022. "Time‐Limited Loyalty Rewards," Journal of Industrial Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 70(4), pages 962-998, December.
    11. Rasch, Alexander & Wenzel, Tobias, 2013. "Piracy in a two-sided software market," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 88(C), pages 78-89.
    12. Belleflamme, Paul & Peitz, Martin, 2019. "Price disclosure by two-sided platforms," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 67(C).
    13. Greg Taylor, 2020. "Competing Sales Channels," Economics Series Working Papers 843, University of Oxford, Department of Economics.
    14. Paul Belleflamme & Martin Peitz, 2018. "Platforms and network effects," Chapters, in: Luis C. Corchón & Marco A. Marini (ed.), Handbook of Game Theory and Industrial Organization, Volume II, chapter 11, pages 286-317, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    15. Paul Belleflamme & Martin Peitz, 2019. "Managing competition on a two‐sided platform," Journal of Economics & Management Strategy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 28(1), pages 5-22, January.
    16. Oksana Loginova & Andrea Mantovani, 2019. "Price competition in the presence of a web aggregator," Journal of Economics, Springer, vol. 126(1), pages 43-73, January.
    17. Yuk‐fai Fong & Qihong Liu, 2011. "Loyalty Rewards Facilitate Tacit Collusion," Journal of Economics & Management Strategy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 20(3), pages 739-775, September.
    18. Muthers Johannes & Wismer Sebastian, 2022. "Why Do Platforms Charge Proportional Fees? Commitment and Seller Participation," Review of Network Economics, De Gruyter, vol. 21(2), pages 83-110, August.
    19. Greenlee, Patrick & Reitman, David & Sibley, David S., 2008. "An antitrust analysis of bundled loyalty discounts," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 26(5), pages 1132-1152, September.
    20. Andrea Mantovani & Claudio Piga & Carlo Reggiani, 2017. "The dynamics of online hotel prices and the EU Booking.com case," Working Papers 17-04, NET Institute.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    JEL classification:

    • D21 - Microeconomics - - Production and Organizations - - - Firm Behavior: Theory
    • D43 - Microeconomics - - Market Structure, Pricing, and Design - - - Oligopoly and Other Forms of Market Imperfection
    • L13 - Industrial Organization - - Market Structure, Firm Strategy, and Market Performance - - - Oligopoly and Other Imperfect Markets
    • L22 - Industrial Organization - - Firm Objectives, Organization, and Behavior - - - Firm Organization and Market Structure
    • L40 - Industrial Organization - - Antitrust Issues and Policies - - - General
    • L50 - Industrial Organization - - Regulation and Industrial Policy - - - General
    • L81 - Industrial Organization - - Industry Studies: Services - - - Retail and Wholesale Trade; e-Commerce

    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:tse:wpaper:129700. 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: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/tsetofr.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.