The Analysis of Mergers that Involve Multisided Platform Businesses

Abstract

A multisided platform (MSP) serves as an intermediary for two or more groups of customers who are linked by indirect network effects. Recent research has found that MSPs are significant in many industries and that some standard economic results-such as the Lerner Index-do not apply to them, in material ways, without some significant modification to take linkages between the multiple sides into account. This article extends several key tools used for the analysis of mergers to situations in which one or more of the suppliers are MSPs. It shows that the application of traditional tools to mergers involving MSPs results in biases, the direction of which depends on the particular tool being used and other conditions. It also extends these tools to the analysis of the merger of MSPs. The techniques are illustrated with an application to an acquisition involving the multisided online advertising industry.

Keywords: platform mergers, mergers in two-sided markets, market definition and platforms, SSNIP test for two-sided platforms, economics of mergers for platforms, platforms and hypothetical monopolist test