Should a peer-to-peer platform set prices for the products on the platform, or should it let sellers set their own prices while providing price recommendations? Centralized prices allow a platform to use demand information it observes, while price recommendations allow for competition in which...

In this study we examine the antecedents of small independent software vendor (ISV) decisions to join a platform ecosystem. Using data on the history of partnering activities from 1201 ISVs from 1996 to 2004, we find that appropriability strategies based on intellectual property rights and the...

The success of the Kindle e-book platform and the increased popularity of e-books among members of the reading community have attracted extensive interest in the high-tech industry. New platform providers are jumping in the market to compete for device and e-book sales. In this paper, we model...

I model dynamic product design along price and non-price dimensions by a firm in a market with positive network externalities between consumers. In the case of a usage fee, I provide conditions under which the steady state (SS) is unique and show that the introductory price is negative and...

We investigate the impact of intergenerational services on the adoption of multi-generational platforms. We consider mobile Internet platform generations for which users download complementary services from third party providers. These services are often intergenerational: newer platforms are...

Many products sold on online platforms have additional features. Platforms can deliberately shroud these features from consumers, e.g. by revealing them only late in the purchase process. For example, platforms often reveal shipping- and handling fees, or upgrades like luggage or hotel services...

This paper studies a “market creating” firm that offers a matching environment, by charging an access fee, to a population of users who wish to form a match. We focus on an environment where users only observe a signal from their randomly assigned partner's type and the signal...

This paper studies a 'market creating' firm (platform) that offers a matching environment by charging an access fee to a population of high and low type users who wish to form a match. We focus on an environment where users only observe a signal of their randomly assigned partner's type and...

Online platforms, such as Google, Facebook, or Amazon, are constantly expanding their activities, while increasing the overlap in their service offering. In this paper, we study the scope and overlap of online platforms' activities, when they are endogenously determined. We model an expansion...

Dominant digital platforms such as Google and Facebook collect personal information of users by default precipitating a market failure in the market for personal information. We establish the economic harms from the market failure. We discuss conditions for eliminating the market failure and...