Rethinking the Use of Traditional Antitrust Enforcement Tools in Multi-sided Markets
OECD Competition Papers
February 2018
28 Pages Posted: 1 Dec 2019 Last revised: 27 Apr 2021
Date Written: June 22, 2017
Abstract
Since the turn of the century, economists have understood that multi-sided markets function in ways that are importantly different from standard markets. Since the ground-breaking work on the topic by Rochet & Tirole, huge progress has been made in modelling these markets and the way they work, and identifying the mistakes that can be made by treating them as traditional markets. Naturally, this has consequences for the way in which competition agencies analyse these markets, and hence on whether, and if so how, they decide to intervene in these markets. The speed and extent of growth in the digital economy in over this same period has made this one of the most important, pressing and analytical challenges that competition agencies now face. This is because much of that digital growth has been driven by the appearance and expansion of globalized platforms that dis-intermediate standard markets and directly connect users, transforming them into more complex multi-sided markets.
Keywords: multisided, platforms, two-sided, competition, antitrust
JEL Classification: L10, L40, L81
Suggested Citation: Suggested Citation