A Price Theory of Multi-Sided Platforms推荐.pdfVIP

American Economic Review 100 (September 2010): 1642–1672 /articles.php?doi=10.1257/aer.100.4.1642 A Price Theory of Multi-Sided Platforms By E. Glen Weyl* I develop a general theory of monopoly pricing of networks. Platforms use insu- lating tariffs to avoid coordination failure, implementing any desired alloca- tion. Profit maximization distorts in the spirit of A. Michael Spence (1975) by internalizing only network externalities to marginal users. Thus the empirical and prescriptive content of the popular Jean-Charles Rochet and Jean Tirole (2006) model of two-sided markets turns on the nature of user heterogeneity. I propose a more plausible, yet equally tractable, model of heterogeneity in which users differ in their income or scale. My approach provides a general measure of market power and helps predict the effects of price regulation and mergers. (JEL D42, D85, L14) The pricing problems of payment and advertising platforms have much in common. Both seek to attract two distinct groups of users: AmEx needs cardholders and merchants, while the New York Times recruits readers and advertisers. Because the value each group takes from using these services depends on the size of the other side of the market, the platform’s pricing and marketing strategies to each group are closely linked. Therefore policy directed at alleviating distortions caused by market power in these industries must take account of how interventions on one side affect welfare and platform behavior on the other. Yet despite credit cards and newspapers both