Platform Markets

Dear Readers, Market definition is perhaps the fundamental step in any antitrust analysis. If competition rules are to seek to regulate markets, and markets (by definition) consist of consumers and suppliers, this should not come as any surprise. However, market definition continues to raise perplexing issues for regulators, litigants, and courts alike. This is because […]

It is widely assumed that platform technology markets are inherently prone to monopoly outcomes in which a single firm or a handful of firms enjoy market power due to network effects and switching costs.  This assumption supports dramatic changes, both proposed and enacted, to the application of competition and antitrust law in platform markets.  Remarkably, […]

While advances in economic theory, econometrics and data availability have helped antitrust authorities to fine-tune their approach to market definition in traditional brick and mortar markets, new economic insights have upended the applicability of the very same market definition tools in (digital) platform markets. We briefly discuss five complications laid bare by developments in the […]

In April 2020, the European Commission launched the review of the Market Definition Notice (MDN), which had remained unaltered since its adoption in 1997. Among the novelties in the revised “Draft MDN” as published in November 2022 is additional guidance in relation to market definition in digital markets, such as multi-sided markets, aftermarkets, and digital […]

As dominant platforms offer related services and expand into adjacent markets, there are serious concerns for anticompetitive tying that may serve to extend their market power to other markets. In this article, I review recent theoretical developments in the leverage theory of tying in relation to digital platform markets where goods are often provided for […]

Universality of antitrust abuse is discernable in decisions of Competition Commission of India “abuse of dominance” of Google and global giants of platform markets. The decisions leave me with a sense of unease. Diversity of an economy and more important of consumers and consumption patterns are lost if reliance is placed on decisions of European […]

By: Ariel Ezrachi & Gene Kimmelman (ProMarket) After years of timid enforcement against powerful online platforms, and silence from Congress, we are witnessing the awakening of antitrust in the United States. At last, antitrust enforcers have accepted that digital market dynamics are imperfect and justify closer scrutiny. Congress has also woken up to its responsibility to update competition policy. […]

This article is part of a Chronicle. See more from this Chronicle Neale Mahoney, Andre Veiga, Glen Weyl, Oct 15, 2014 One of the oldest arguments against both competition and the policies promoting it is the problem of cream-skimming. In selectionmarkets, like insurance and finance, where some customers are cheaper to serve than others, competitors […]