IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/wpa/wuwpio/0503014.html

E-commerce, two-sided markets and info-mediation

Author

Listed:
  • Alexandre Gaudeul

    (University of East Anglia - Norwich and ESRC-CCP)

  • Bruno Jullien

    (IDEI - GREMAQ - University of Toulouse)

Abstract

Participants in a market, buyers and sellers, may need the service of an intermediary who will put them into contact and give them information about their potential trading partner. The intermediary chooses what price it will charge to each side to have access to its service. It also chooses what information it will reveal, for example to the buyer about the value of the seller’s product. In a market with network externalities, it would be optimal that everybody had access to the other side, as each side wants as many agents from the other side to be present as possible. This is however not feasible as the intermediary must charge positive access prices if it is to make any profit. In a market with asymmetric information, it would be optimal that all information about the buyers’ and sellers’ valuation for the traded product be available, but the intermediary will want to conceal or manipulate that information to increase its profit. The paper examines in the first part how network externalities play out in the intermediary’s access pricing strategies in both a monopoly and a competitive setting. In the second part, the paper shows how the intermediary will strategically manipulate and conceal information to extract the surplus from trade in the market it intermediates.

Suggested Citation

  • Alexandre Gaudeul & Bruno Jullien, 2005. "E-commerce, two-sided markets and info-mediation," Industrial Organization 0503014, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised 05 Apr 2005.
    • Handle: RePEc:wpa:wuwpio:0503014
    Note: Type of Document - pdf; pages: 30
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://econwpa.ub.uni-muenchen.de/econ-wp/io/papers/0503/0503014.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Masahiro Okuno-Fujiwara & Andrew Postlewaite & Kotaro Suzumura, 1990. "Strategic Information Revelation," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 57(1), pages 25-47.
    2. Alexandre Gaudeul, 2004. "Internet Intermediaries' Editorial Content Quality," Industrial Organization 0409005, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    3. Josh Lerner & Jean Tirole, 2004. "A Model of Forum Shopping, with Special Reference to Standard Setting Organizations," NBER Working Papers 10664, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    4. Gerardo A. Guerra, 2001. "Certification Disclosure and Informational Efficiency: A Case for Ordered Ranking of Levels," Economics Series Working Papers 64, University of Oxford, Department of Economics.
    5. David P. Baron & David Besanko, 1984. "Regulation, Asymmetric Information, and Auditing," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 15(4), pages 447-470, Winter.
    6. Michael R. Baye & John Morgan, 2001. "Information Gatekeepers on the Internet and the Competitiveness of Homogeneous Product Markets," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 91(3), pages 454-474, June.
    7. Guerra, G.A., 2001. "Certification Disclosure And Informational Efficiency: A Case For Ordered Ranking Of Levels," Economics Series Working Papers 9964, University of Oxford, Department of Economics.
    8. Alessandro Lizzeri, 1999. "Information Revelation and Certification Intermediaries," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 30(2), pages 214-231, Summer.
    9. Albano, Gian Luigi & Lizzeri, Alessandro, 2001. "Strategic Certification and Provision of Quality," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 42(1), pages 267-283, February.
    10. Caillaud, Bernard & Jullien, Bruno, 2001. "Competing cybermediaries," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 45(4-6), pages 797-808, May.
    11. Strausz, Roland, 2005. "Honest certification and the threat of capture," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 23(1-2), pages 45-62, February.
    12. Khalil, Fahad & Lawarree, Jacques, 1995. "Collusive Auditors," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 85(2), pages 442-446, May.
    13. Paul R. Milgrom, 1981. "Good News and Bad News: Representation Theorems and Applications," Bell Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 12(2), pages 380-391, Autumn.
    14. Mark Armstrong, 2006. "Competition in two‐sided markets," RAND Journal of Economics, RAND Corporation, vol. 37(3), pages 668-691, September.
    15. Crawford, Vincent P & Sobel, Joel, 1982. "Strategic Information Transmission," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 50(6), pages 1431-1451, 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. E. Glen Weyl, 2010. "A Price Theory of Multi-sided Platforms," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 100(4), pages 1642-1672, September.
    2. Polanski Arnold & Cardona Daniel, 2012. "Multilevel Mediation in Symmetric Trees," Review of Network Economics, De Gruyter, vol. 11(3), pages 1-23, September.
    3. Wataru Tamura, 2013. "Auction Platform Design and the Linkage Principle," CARF F-Series CARF-F-330, Center for Advanced Research in Finance, Faculty of Economics, The University of Tokyo.
    4. Weyl, E. Glen, 2008. "Monopolies in Two-Sided Markets: Comparative Statics and Identification," Department of Economics, Working Paper Series qt69c9c56z, Department of Economics, Institute for Business and Economic Research, UC Berkeley.

    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. Belleflamme,Paul & Peitz,Martin, 2015. "Industrial Organization," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9781107069978, January.
    2. Ginger Zhe Jin & Andrew Kato & John A. List, 2010. "That’S News To Me! Information Revelation In Professional Certification Markets," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 48(1), pages 104-122, January.
    3. Doherty, Neil A. & Kartasheva, Anastasia V. & Phillips, Richard D., 2012. "Information effect of entry into credit ratings market: The case of insurers' ratings," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 106(2), pages 308-330.
    4. Sungho Yun, 2021. "Regulating corruptible certifier behavior," Journal of Regulatory Economics, Springer, vol. 59(2), pages 109-135, April.
    5. Belleflamme, Paul & Omrani, Nessrine & Peitz, Martin, 2015. "The economics of crowdfunding platforms," Information Economics and Policy, Elsevier, vol. 33(C), pages 11-28.
    6. Alexandre Gaudeul, 2004. "Internet Intermediaries' Editorial Content Quality," Industrial Organization 0409005, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    7. Rick Harbaugh & John W. Maxwell & Beatrice Roussillon, 2006. "The Groucho Effect of Uncertain Standards," Working Papers 2006-09, Indiana University, Kelley School of Business, Department of Business Economics and Public Policy.
    8. Miklós-Thal, Jeanine & Schumacher, Heiner, 2013. "The value of recommendations," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 79(C), pages 132-147.
    9. Alexander E. Saak, 2017. "The Value of Delegated Quality Control," Journal of Industrial Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 65(2), pages 309-335, June.
    10. Xujin Pu & Huanzhen Zhang, 2016. "Voluntary Certification of Agricultural Products in Competitive Markets: The Consideration of Boundedly Rational Consumers," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 8(9), pages 1-13, September.
    11. Martin Pollrich & Lilo Wagner, "undated". "Informational opacity and honest certication," BDPEMS Working Papers 2013001, Berlin School of Economics.
    12. Marcus Alexander & Matthew C. Harding & Department of Economics & MIT, 2003. "Self-regulation and the Certification of the European Information Economy The Case of e-Healthcare Information Provision," Economics Series Working Papers 154, University of Oxford, Department of Economics.
    13. Michael Ostrovsky & Michael Schwarz, 2010. "Information Disclosure and Unraveling in Matching Markets," American Economic Journal: Microeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 2(2), pages 34-63, May.
    14. Kolotilin, Anton, 2015. "Experimental design to persuade," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 90(C), pages 215-226.
    15. Sabyasachi Das, 2016. "Certification Under Oligopolistic Competition," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 65(1), pages 251-271, September.
    16. Ting Liu & Monic Jiayin Sun, 2007. "Informal Payments in Developing Countries' Public Health Sectors¤," Boston University - Department of Economics - Working Papers Series WP2007-032, Boston University - Department of Economics.
    17. Mathis, Jérôme, 2008. "Full revelation of information in Sender-Receiver games of persuasion," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 143(1), pages 571-584, November.
    18. Konrad Stahl & Roland Strausz, 2017. "Certification and Market Transparency," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 84(4), pages 1842-1868.
    19. Gill, David & Sgroi, Daniel, "undated". "The Optimal Choice of Pre-launch Reviewer: How Best to Transmit Information using Tests and Conditional Pricing," Economic Research Papers 269888, University of Warwick - Department of Economics.
    20. Creane, Anthony & Jeitschko, Thomas D. & Sim, Kyoungbo, 2019. "Welfare effects of certification under latent adverse selection," DICE Discussion Papers 312, Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf, Düsseldorf Institute for Competition Economics (DICE).

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    JEL classification:

    • D4 - Microeconomics - - Market Structure, Pricing, and Design
    • L1 - Industrial Organization - - Market Structure, Firm Strategy, and Market Performance

    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:wpa:wuwpio:0503014. 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: EconWPA The email address of this maintainer does not seem to be valid anymore. Please ask EconWPA to update the entry or send us the correct address (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://econwpa.ub.uni-muenchen.de .

    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.