Probably not. Or, at least, it is a sui generis two-sided market. Unlike other platforms, such as credit cards, night clubs, or operating systems, where a single transaction is performed via the platform (trade, date or using a PC), two different transactions take place on Google. Users look for...

The adequate application of EU competition law to online platforms will entail multiple challenges to the current framework, which have yet been comprehensively explored. This contribution provides an overview of such challenges that enforcement authorities and undertakings will face in absence...

The present study analyzes how can positive network externalities in the form of network effects exert significant influence over the characterization of ‘market access’ in the context of high-technology markets. Throughout the last two decades there has been a vast body of literature...

Digital platforms have reshaped many product markets and play an increasingly important role in economies around the globe. Some of these platforms have become powerful players and may possess a lot of market power. Economists use a number of indicators to assess market power. In this article we...

Prior to the invention of the Internet, shopping for goods was relatively simple: a consumer visited a brick-and-mortal retailer and selected a product from what was available or, for some retailers, shopped using a catalog. Today, a simple Internet search may return a bewildering number of...

We consider the merits of the recent EU’s Digital Markets Act from the perspective of innovation and value creation. We conceptualize innovation as new interactions being created by the digital platform leading to ‘value creation’, in contrast to facilitating existing interactions or...

Is there a problem with large technology firms, or platforms, purchasing nascent competitors and suppressing competition before they can mature into vibrant competitors? Further, if there is a problem, are the current antitrust laws and the enforcement of those laws sufficient to combat the...

This paper is about the regulation of bad behavior by participants on digital platforms. It shows that these platforms have private incentives to limit this bad behavior and, in fact, have rules, monitoring, and enforcement systems to do so. However, these private incentives may not provide...

The internet giants – Facebook, Amazon, Apple, Microsoft, and Google – have transformed society with both positive and negative effects. The negative effects have been stark. There have been huge disruptions caused by e-commerce. More recently, subtler, but even more serious negative effects...

This note provides some comments on the nature of competition among digital platforms (mainly the GAFA), which will be qualified as ‘co-opetition’, to reflect the complementarity of services offered and fierce rivalry among the platforms in their strategies of vertical integration. The main...