Multi-sided platforms (MSPs), which bring together two or more interdependent groups of customers, have recently risen to economic and business prominence in many industries. This paper first lays out a simple micro-founded framework which aims to organize academic and managerial thinking about...

This paper provides a first pass at clarifying the economic tradeoffs between two polar strategies for market intermediation: the merchant mode, in which the intermediary buys from sellers and resells to buyers; and the two-sided platform mode, under which the intermediary enables affiliated...