Platform Economics: Essays on Multi-Sided Businesses

By David S. Evans (Global Economics Group), Richard Schmalensee (Massachusetts Institute of Technology), Michael D. Noel (Texas Tech University), Howard H. Chang (Global Economics Group) & Daniel D. Garcia-Swartz (Charles River Associates)

Abstract:     This volume collects a series of essays that I have written over the last decade on multi-sided platform businesses that create value by providing products that enable two or more different types of customers to get together, find each other, and exchange value. Part I presents background pieces on the economics of multi-sided platforms and industries in which these platforms are common. Part II examines the antitrust economics of two-sided markets including the difficult problem of defining the boundaries of competition. Part III comprises several papers that apply two-sided market analysis to web-based businesses. Part IV does the same for payment cards which is the industry that attracted much of the early two-sided analysis — in part because this framework was helpful for understanding the hotly debated issue of interchange fees. Part V collects several article and book chapters on software platforms. These platforms have become especially important in the last several years because they are now the basis for revolutionary developments with mobile devices (e.g. the iPhone and Android), social networking (Facebook in particular), and payments (PayPalX).