IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/b/zbw/iwkana/123.html
   My bibliography  Save this book

The economics of platforms

Author

Listed:
  • Demary, Vera
  • Rusche, Christian

Abstract

Digital platforms already dominate the top 10 of the world's most valuable firms. The specific characteristics of their business model, such as quick growth and market power soon after market entry, have provoked public discourse. This paper analyzes digital platforms' business models, the reasons for their success and the challenges they present. Digital platforms offer an online forum for conducting transactions and therefore are able to dramatically reduce transaction costs, which creates value for platform users. Generally, digital platforms are aware of the high and increasing importance of data. By collecting and combining data from the different user groups, digital platforms are able to improve their service for existing users and to attract new user groups. Digital platforms' market power and their control over large, valuable sets of data have attracted the attention of regulatory authorities and led to investigations and fines. Economic policy should aim to protect consumers while still fostering the digital platform business model.

Suggested Citation

  • Demary, Vera & Rusche, Christian, 2018. "The economics of platforms," IW-Analysen, Institut der deutschen Wirtschaft (IW) / German Economic Institute, volume 123, number 123.
    • Handle: RePEc:zbw:iwkana:123
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.econstor.eu/bitstream/10419/182531/1/1031227806.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Hildebrandt, Christian & Arnold, René, 2016. "Big Data und OTT-Geschäftsmodelle sowie daraus resultierende Wettbewerbsprobleme und Herausforderungen bei Datenschutz und Verbraucherschutz," WIK Discussion Papers 414, WIK Wissenschaftliches Institut für Infrastruktur und Kommunikationsdienste GmbH.
    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. Christian Rusche & Jan Büchel, 2021. "On Gatekeepers and Structural Competition Problems," Intereconomics: Review of European Economic Policy, Springer;ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics;Centre for European Policy Studies (CEPS), vol. 56(4), pages 205-210, July.
    2. Rainer Alt, 2020. "Evolution and perspectives of electronic markets," Electronic Markets, Springer;IIM University of St. Gallen, vol. 30(1), pages 1-13, March.
    3. Klaus-Heiner Röhl & Barbara Engels, 2021. "Mehr Kooperation von Start-ups und Mittelstand als Chance für Digitalisierung und Innovationen [More Cooperation Between Startups and SMEs as an Opportunity for Digital Transformation and Innovatio," Wirtschaftsdienst, Springer;ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, vol. 101(5), pages 381-386, May.
    4. Thomas Mayer & Julian Grigo & Patrick Hansen & Lars Hornuf & Burkhard Balz & Jan Paulick & Markus Demary & Vera Demary & Stefan Eichler & Marcel Thum & Gilbert Fridgen & Benedict Drasch, 2019. "Parallelwährungen jenseits der Finanzaufsicht: Haben Bitcoin und Libra eine Zukunft?," ifo Schnelldienst, ifo Institute - Leibniz Institute for Economic Research at the University of Munich, vol. 72(17), pages 03-28, September.
    5. Christian Rusche & Marc Scheufen & Steffen J. Roth & Karl-Nikolaus Peifer, 2019. "Die Ökonomie des neuen EU-Urheberrechts: Sieg der Plattformbetreiber oder Chance für Geschäftsmodelle der Kreativbranche?," ifo Schnelldienst, ifo Institute - Leibniz Institute for Economic Research at the University of Munich, vol. 72(13), pages 03-11, July.

    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. Nett, Lorenz & Hildebrandt, Christian, 2017. "Marktabgrenzung und Marktmacht bei OTT-0- und OTT-1-Diensten – Eine Projektskizze am Beispiel von Instant-Messenger-Diensten," WIK Discussion Papers 416, WIK Wissenschaftliches Institut für Infrastruktur und Kommunikationsdienste GmbH.
    2. Bott, Johanna & Arnold, René & Hildebrandt, Christian, 2018. "Die Nutzung von Daten durch OTT-Dienste zur Abschöpfung von Aufmerksamkeit und Zahlungsbereitschaft: Implikationen für Daten- und Verbraucherschutz," WIK Discussion Papers 431, WIK Wissenschaftliches Institut für Infrastruktur und Kommunikationsdienste GmbH.
    3. Arnold, René & Marcus, J. Scott & Petropoulos, Georgios & Schneider, Anna, 2018. "Is data the new oil? Diminishing returns to scale," 29th European Regional ITS Conference, Trento 2018 184927, International Telecommunications Society (ITS).
    4. Arnold, René & Hildebrandt, Christian & Taş, Serpil, 2020. "European data economy: Between competition and regulation. Final report," Study Series, WIK Wissenschaftliches Institut für Infrastruktur und Kommunikationsdienste GmbH, number 251538.
    5. Hildebrandt, Christian & Arnold, René, 2018. "Marktbeobachtung in der digitalen Wirtschaft – Ein Modell zur Analyse von Online-Plattformen," WIK Discussion Papers 427, WIK Wissenschaftliches Institut für Infrastruktur und Kommunikationsdienste GmbH.
    6. Kroon, Peter & Arnold, René, 2018. "Die Bedeutung von Interoperabilität in der digitalen Welt – Neue Herausforderungen in der interpersonellen Kommunikation," WIK Discussion Papers 437, WIK Wissenschaftliches Institut für Infrastruktur und Kommunikationsdienste GmbH.

    More about this item

    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:zbw:iwkana:123. 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: ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/iwkolde.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.