IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/inm/ormksc/v43y2024i5p971-985.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Effects of Market Size and Competition in Two-Sided Markets: Evidence from Online Dating

Author

Listed:
  • Jessica Fong

    (Ross School of Business, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan 48109)

Abstract

This paper presents a field experiment designed to independently measure cross-side and same-side network effects. I conduct this experiment in collaboration with an online dating platform to examine how the number of platform users on the opposite side (“market size”) and number of platform users on the same side (“competition size”) impact search behavior. The experiment provides a user-level information treatment by indicating the lower bound on the number of men and women near the user’s location. I find that, on average, an increase in market size deters users from participating in the market. Conditional on participating, market and competition size influence matching decisions. Specifically, an increase in market size causes users to become more selective, whereas competition causes users to become less selective. I discuss potential underlying mechanisms that can explain these empirical findings. History: Tat Chan served as the senior editor. Funding: This work was supported by Data Provider (worked as a contractor during experiment implementation). Supplemental Material: The online appendix and data files are available at https://doi.org/10.1287/mksc.2023.0142 .

Suggested Citation

  • Jessica Fong, 2024. "Effects of Market Size and Competition in Two-Sided Markets: Evidence from Online Dating," Marketing Science, INFORMS, vol. 43(5), pages 971-985, September.
    • Handle: RePEc:inm:ormksc:v:43:y:2024:i:5:p:971-985
    DOI: 10.1287/mksc.2023.0142
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1287/mksc.2023.0142
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1287/mksc.2023.0142?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    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:inm:ormksc:v:43:y:2024:i:5:p:971-985. 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.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using 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: Chris Asher (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/inforea.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.