IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ctl/louvec/2006048.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Intermediation and investment incentives

Author

Listed:
  • Paul, BELLEFLAMME

    (UNIVERSITE CATHOLIQUE DE LOUVAIN, Department of Economics)

  • Martin PEITZ

    (University of Mannheim)

Abstract

We analyze whether and how the fact that products are not sold on free, public, platforms but on competing for-profit platforms affects sellers’ investment incentives. Investments in cost reduction, quality, or marketing measures are here to joint and coordinated efforts by sellers. We show that, in general, for-profit intermediation is not neutral to such investment incentives. As for-profit intermediaries reduce the rents that are availale in the market, one might suspect that sellers have weaker investment incentives with competing for-profit platforms. However, this is not necessarily the case. The reason is that investment incentives affect the size of the network effects and thus competition between intermediaries. In particular, we show that whether for-profit intermediation raises or lowers investment incentives depends on which side of the market singlehomes

Suggested Citation

  • Paul, BELLEFLAMME & Martin PEITZ, 2006. "Intermediation and investment incentives," Discussion Papers (ECON - Département des Sciences Economiques) 2006048, Université catholique de Louvain, Département des Sciences Economiques.
    • Handle: RePEc:ctl:louvec:2006048
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://sites.uclouvain.be/econ/DP/IRES/2006-48.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Kaiser, Ulrich & Wright, Julian, 2006. "Price structure in two-sided markets: Evidence from the magazine industry," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 24(1), pages 1-28, January.
    2. Daniel F. Spulber, 1996. "Market Microstructure and Intermediation," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 10(3), pages 135-152, Summer.
    3. Mark Armstrong, 2006. "Competition in two‐sided markets," RAND Journal of Economics, RAND Corporation, vol. 37(3), pages 668-691, September.
    4. 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.
    5. John Rust & George Hall, 2003. "Middlemen versus Market Makers: A Theory of Competitive Exchange," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 111(2), pages 353-403, April.
    6. 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.
    7. Volker Nocke & Martin Peitz & Konrad Stahl, 2007. "Platform Ownership," Journal of the European Economic Association, MIT Press, vol. 5(6), pages 1130-1160, December.
    8. Gehrig, Thomas, 1993. "Intermediation in Search Markets," Journal of Economics & Management Strategy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 2(1), pages 97-120, Spring.
    9. repec:rus:hseeco:72158 is not listed on IDEAS
    10. Mark Armstrong & Julian Wright, 2007. "Two-sided Markets, Competitive Bottlenecks and Exclusive Contracts," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 32(2), pages 353-380, August.
    11. 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.
    12. Evans David S., 2003. "Some Empirical Aspects of Multi-sided Platform Industries," Review of Network Economics, De Gruyter, vol. 2(3), pages 1-19, September.
    13. Daniel F. Spulber, 2002. "Market Microstructure and Incentives to Invest," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 110(2), pages 352-381, April.
    14. David Evans & Richard Schmalensee, 2007. "The Industrial Organization of Markets with Two-Sided Platforms," CPI Journal, Competition Policy International, vol. 3.
    15. Kamien, Morton I & Muller, Eitan & Zang, Israel, 1992. "Research Joint Ventures and R&D Cartels," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 82(5), pages 1293-1306, December.
    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. Alexander Rasch, 2007. "Platform competition with partial multihoming under differentiation: a note," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 12(7), pages 1-8.
    2. repec:ebl:ecbull:v:12:y:2007:i:7:p:1-8 is not listed 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. Belleflamme, Paul & Peitz, Martin, 2010. "Platform competition and seller investment incentives," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 54(8), pages 1059-1076, November.
    2. Galeotti, Andrea & Moraga-González, José Luis, 2009. "Platform intermediation in a market for differentiated products," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 53(4), pages 417-428, May.
    3. Belleflamme,Paul & Peitz,Martin, 2015. "Industrial Organization," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9781107687899.
    4. Moraga-Gonzalez, Jose L. & Wildenbeest, Matthijs R., 2011. "Comparison sites," IESE Research Papers D/933, IESE Business School.
      • Jose Luis Moraga-Gonzalez & Matthijs R. Wildenbeest, 2011. "Comparison Sites," Working Papers 2011-04, Indiana University, Kelley School of Business, Department of Business Economics and Public Policy.
    5. Wilko Bolt & Kimmo Soramäki, 2008. "Competition, bargaining power and pricing in two-sided markets," DNB Working Papers 181, Netherlands Central Bank, Research Department.
    6. Reisinger, Markus, 2010. "Unique Equilibrium in Two-Part Tariff Competition between Two-Sided Platforms," Discussion Paper Series of SFB/TR 15 Governance and the Efficiency of Economic Systems 308, Free University of Berlin, Humboldt University of Berlin, University of Bonn, University of Mannheim, University of Munich.
    7. Amelio, Andrea & Giardino-Karlinger, Liliane & Valletti, Tommaso, 2020. "Exclusionary pricing in two-sided markets," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 73(C).
    8. Filistrucchi, L. & Geradin, D.A.A.G. & van Damme, E.E.C., 2012. "Identifying Two-Sided Markets," Other publications TiSEM d69d2808-d3eb-46ea-a6ac-c, Tilburg University, School of Economics and Management.
    9. Paul Belleflamme & Eric Toulemonde, 2009. "Negative Intra-Group Externalities In Two-Sided Markets," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 50(1), pages 245-272, February.
    10. Wang, Shiying & Chen, Huimiao & Wu, Desheng, 2019. "Regulating platform competition in two-sided markets under the O2O era," International Journal of Production Economics, Elsevier, vol. 215(C), pages 131-143.
    11. Jullien, Bruno & Pavan, Alessandro & Rysman, Marc, 2021. "Two-sided Markets, Pricing, and Network Effects," TSE Working Papers 21-1238, Toulouse School of Economics (TSE).
    12. Justus Haucap & Torben Stühmeier, 2016. "Competition and antitrust in Internet markets," Chapters, in: Johannes M. Bauer & Michael Latzer (ed.), Handbook on the Economics of the Internet, chapter 9, pages 183-210, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    13. Jabbour, Chady & Rey-Valette, Hélène & Maurel, Pierre & Salles, Jean-Michel, 2019. "Spatial data infrastructure management: A two-sided market approach for strategic reflections," International Journal of Information Management, Elsevier, vol. 45(C), pages 69-82.
    14. Martin Peitz, 2006. "Marktplätze und indirekte Netzwerkeffekte," Perspektiven der Wirtschaftspolitik, Verein für Socialpolitik, vol. 7(3), pages 317-333, August.
    15. Fan, Rong & Ban, Xuegang (Jeff), 2022. "Commuting service platform: Concept and analysis," Transportation Research Part B: Methodological, Elsevier, vol. 158(C), pages 18-51.
    16. Subhasish M. Chowdhury & Stephen Martin, 2017. "Exclusivity and exclusion on platform Markets," Journal of Economics, Springer, vol. 120(2), pages 95-118, March.
    17. Oliver Budzinski & Janina Satzer, 2008. "Sports Business and the Theory of Multisided Markets," MAGKS Papers on Economics 200811, Philipps-Universität Marburg, Faculty of Business Administration and Economics, Department of Economics (Volkswirtschaftliche Abteilung).
    18. Calvano, Emilio & Polo, Michele, 2021. "Market power, competition and innovation in digital markets: A survey," Information Economics and Policy, Elsevier, vol. 54(C).
    19. 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).
    20. Wang, Jin, 2021. "Do birds of a feather flock together? Platform’s quality screening and end-users’ choices theory and empirical study of online trading platforms," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 75(C).

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Two-Sided Maarkets; Network Effects; Intermediation; Investment Incentives;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • L10 - Industrial Organization - - Market Structure, Firm Strategy, and Market Performance - - - General
    • D40 - Microeconomics - - Market Structure, Pricing, and Design - - - General

    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:ctl:louvec:2006048. 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: Virginie LEBLANC (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/iruclbe.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.