IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ces/ceswps/_10994.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Welfare Implications of Personalized Pricing in Competitive Platform Markets: The Role of Network Effects

Author

Listed:
  • Qiuyu Lu
  • Noriaki Matsushima
  • Shiva Shekhar

Abstract

This study explores the welfare impact of personalized pricing for consumers in a duopolistic two-sided market, with consumers single-homing and developers affiliating with a platform according to their outside option. Personalized pricing, which is private in nature, cannot influence expectations regarding the network sizes, inducing the platforms to offer lower participation fees for developers. Those lower fees increase network benefits for consumers, allowing the platforms to exploit these benefits through personalized pricing. Personalized prices are higher when the network value for developers is high, benefiting competing platforms at the expense of consumers. These findings offer policy insights on personalized pricing.

Suggested Citation

  • Qiuyu Lu & Noriaki Matsushima & Shiva Shekhar, 2024. "Welfare Implications of Personalized Pricing in Competitive Platform Markets: The Role of Network Effects," CESifo Working Paper Series 10994, CESifo.
    • Handle: RePEc:ces:ceswps:_10994
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.cesifo.org/DocDL/cesifo1_wp10994.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Belleflamme, Paul & Peitz, Martin, 2019. "Price disclosure by two-sided platforms," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 67(C).
    2. Mark Armstrong, 2006. "Competition in two‐sided markets," RAND Journal of Economics, RAND Corporation, vol. 37(3), pages 668-691, September.
    3. Qihong Liu & Konstantinos Serfes, 2013. "Price Discrimination in Two‐Sided Markets," Journal of Economics & Management Strategy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 22(4), pages 768-786, December.
    4. Greg Shaffer & Z. John Zhang, 2002. "Competitive One-to-One Promotions," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 48(9), pages 1143-1160, September.
    5. Ramnath K. Chellappa & Rajiv Mukherjee, 2021. "Platform Preannouncement Strategies: The Strategic Role of Information in Two-Sided Markets Competition," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 67(3), pages 1527-1545, March.
    6. Andrew Rhodes & Jidong Zhou, 2022. "Personalized Pricing and Competition," Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers 2329R, Cowles Foundation for Research in Economics, Yale University.
    7. 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.
    8. Rosa Branca Esteves & Jie Shuai, 2022. "Personalized prices in a delivered pricing model with a price sensitive demand," NIPE Working Papers 1/2022, NIPE - Universidade do Minho.
    9. Jean-Charles Rochet & Jean Tirole, 2003. "Platform Competition in Two-Sided Markets," Journal of the European Economic Association, MIT Press, vol. 1(4), pages 990-1029, June.
    10. Qiuyu Lu & Noriaki Matsushima, 2023. "Personalized pricing when consumers can purchase multiple items," ISER Discussion Paper 1192, Institute of Social and Economic Research, Osaka University.
    11. Benjamin Reed Shiller, 2020. "Approximating Purchase Propensities And Reservation Prices From Broad Consumer Tracking," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 61(2), pages 847-870, May.
    12. Greg Shaffer & Z. John Zhang, 1995. "Competitive Coupon Targeting," Marketing Science, INFORMS, vol. 14(4), pages 395-416.
    13. Juanjuan Zhang, 2011. "The Perils of Behavior-Based Personalization," Marketing Science, INFORMS, vol. 30(1), pages 170-186, 01-02.
    14. Hagiu, Andrei & Hałaburda, Hanna, 2014. "Information and two-sided platform profits," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 34(C), pages 25-35.
    15. Caillaud, Bernard & Jullien, Bruno, 2003. "Chicken & Egg: Competition among Intermediation Service Providers," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 34(2), pages 309-328, Summer.
    16. Kim, Min Sung & Kim, Eun & Hwang, ShinYoung & Kim, Junghwan & Kim, Seongcheol, 2017. "Willingness to pay for over-the-top services in China and Korea," Telecommunications Policy, Elsevier, vol. 41(3), pages 197-207.
    17. Vidyanand Choudhary & Anindya Ghose & Tridas Mukhopadhyay & Uday Rajan, 2005. "Personalized Pricing and Quality Differentiation," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 51(7), pages 1120-1130, July.
    18. Geoffrey G. Parker & Marshall W. Van Alstyne, 2005. "Two-Sided Network Effects: A Theory of Information Product Design," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 51(10), pages 1494-1504, October.
    19. Chongwoo Choe & Stephen King & Noriaki Matsushima, 2018. "Pricing with Cookies: Behavior-Based Price Discrimination and Spatial Competition," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 64(12), pages 5669-5687, December.
    20. Thisse, Jacques-Francois & Vives, Xavier, 1988. "On the Strategic Choice of Spatial Price Policy," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 78(1), pages 122-137, March.
    21. Rhodes, Andrew & Zhou, Jidong, 2022. "Personalized Pricing and Competition," MPRA Paper 112988, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    22. Rong Ding & Julian Wright, 2017. "Payment Card Interchange Fees and Price Discrimination," Journal of Industrial Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 65(1), pages 39-72, March.
    23. Toshihiro Matsumura & Noriaki Matsushima, 2015. "Should Firms Employ Personalized Pricing?," Journal of Economics & Management Strategy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 24(4), pages 887-903, October.
    24. Reisinger, Markus, 2012. "Platform competition for advertisers and users in media markets," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 30(2), pages 243-252.
    25. Adam N. Smith & Stephan Seiler & Ishant Aggarwal, 2023. "Optimal Price Targeting," Marketing Science, INFORMS, vol. 42(3), pages 476-499, May.
    26. Jean-Pierre Dubé & Sanjog Misra, 2023. "Personalized Pricing and Consumer Welfare," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 131(1), pages 131-189.
    27. 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.
    28. Houba, Harold & Motchenkova, Evgenia & Wang, Hui, 2023. "Endogenous personalized pricing in the Hotelling model," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 225(C).
    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. Qiuyu Lu & Noriaki Matsushima, 2023. "Personalized pricing when consumers can purchase multiple items," ISER Discussion Paper 1192, Institute of Social and Economic Research, Osaka University.
    2. Bruno Jullien & Markus Reisinger & Patrick Rey, 2023. "Personalized Pricing and Distribution Strategies," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 69(3), pages 1687-1702, March.
    3. Foros, Øystein & Kind, Hans Jarle & Nguyen-Ones, Mai, 2024. "The choice of pricing format: Firms may choose uniform pricing over personalized pricing to induce rivals to soften competition," Information Economics and Policy, Elsevier, vol. 66(C).
    4. Jullien, Bruno & Pavan, Alessandro & Rysman, Marc, 2021. "Two-sided Markets, Pricing, and Network Effects," TSE Working Papers 21-1238, Toulouse School of Economics (TSE).
    5. Zhijun Chen & Chongwoo Choe & Noriaki Matsushima, 2020. "Competitive Personalized Pricing," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 66(9), pages 4003-4023, September.
    6. Yifan Dou & D. J. Wu, 2021. "Platform Competition Under Network Effects: Piggybacking and Optimal Subsidization," Information Systems Research, INFORMS, vol. 32(3), pages 820-835, September.
    7. Martin Peitz, 2024. "The Economic Theory of Two-Sided Platforms," CRC TR 224 Discussion Paper Series crctr224_2024_584, University of Bonn and University of Mannheim, Germany.
    8. Jullien, Bruno & Sand-Zantman, Wilfried, 2021. "The Economics of Platforms: A Theory Guide for Competition Policy," Information Economics and Policy, Elsevier, vol. 54(C).
    9. Xi Li & Xin (Shane) Wang & Barrie R. Nault, 2024. "Is Personalized Pricing Profitable When Firms Can Differentiate?," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 70(7), pages 4184-4199, July.
    10. Yannis Bakos & Hanna Halaburda, 2020. "Platform Competition with Multihoming on Both Sides: Subsidize or Not?," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 66(12), pages 5599-5607, December.
    11. Esteves, Rosa-Branca & Carballo-Cruz, Francisco, 2023. "Can data openness unlock competition when an incumbent has exclusive data access for personalized pricing?," Information Economics and Policy, Elsevier, vol. 64(C).
    12. Zhijun Chen & Chongwoo Choe & Jiajia Cong & Noriaki Matsushima, 2022. "Data‐driven mergers and personalization," RAND Journal of Economics, RAND Corporation, vol. 53(1), pages 3-31, March.
    13. Martin Peitz, 2023. "Governance and Regulation of Platforms," CRC TR 224 Discussion Paper Series crctr224_2023_480, University of Bonn and University of Mannheim, Germany.
    14. Chongwoo Choe & Stephen King & Noriaki Matsushima, 2018. "Pricing with Cookies: Behavior-Based Price Discrimination and Spatial Competition," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 64(12), pages 5669-5687, December.
    15. Xie, Jiaping & Zhu, Weijun & Wei, Lihong & Liang, Ling, 2021. "Platform competition with partial multi-homing: When both same-side and cross-side network effects exist," International Journal of Production Economics, Elsevier, vol. 233(C).
    16. Zhu, Weijun & Xie, Jiaping & Xia, Yu & Wei, Lihong & Liang, Ling, 2023. "Getting more third-party participants on board: Optimal pricing and investment decisions in competitive platform ecosystems," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 307(1), pages 177-192.
    17. Geng, Yang & Zhang, Yulin, 2020. "Platform launch in two-sided markets and users’ expectations," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 558(C).
    18. Jan Frederic Nerbel & Markus Kreutzer, 2023. "Digital platform ecosystems in flux: From proprietary digital platforms to wide-spanning ecosystems," Electronic Markets, Springer;IIM University of St. Gallen, vol. 33(1), pages 1-20, December.
    19. Esther Gal-Or & Ronen Gal-Or & Nabita Penmetsa, 2018. "The Role of User Privacy Concerns in Shaping Competition Among Platforms," Information Systems Research, INFORMS, vol. 29(3), pages 698-722, September.
    20. Marco Antonielli & Lapo Filistrucchi, 2011. "Collusion and the political differentiation of newspapers," Working Papers 11-26, NET Institute, revised Nov 2011.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    personalized pricing; uniform prices; two-sided market; content developers;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • L13 - Industrial Organization - - Market Structure, Firm Strategy, and Market Performance - - - Oligopoly and Other Imperfect Markets
    • D43 - Microeconomics - - Market Structure, Pricing, and Design - - - Oligopoly and Other Forms of Market Imperfection

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:ces:ceswps:_10994. 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: Klaus Wohlrabe (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/cesifde.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.