Digital platforms, such as social media and video streaming sites, often collect large amounts of personal data from their users. In recent years, most platforms also start offering payment services, such as Apple Pay, Amazon Pay, and WeChat Pay. In this paper, we characterize conditions under...

Why do BigTech platforms introduce payment services? Digital platforms often run business models where activities on the platform generate data that can be monetized off the platform. There is a trade-off between the value of such data and the privacy concerns of users, since platforms need to...

Dominant digital platforms such as Google and Facebook collect personal information of users by default precipitating a market failure in the market for personal information. We establish the economic harms from the market failure. We discuss conditions for eliminating the market failure and...

This report provides an overview of the relevant economic research literature on platforms or multi-sided online markets. It discusses platforms from a regulatory policy angle, including potential market failures in platforms, the extent of self-regulation and possible regulatory responses...

Online platforms play an increasingly important role in the European business landscape. Guided by questions from the European Commission’s consultation on this topic, the paper aims to provide insight into the characteristics of online platforms and the resulting regulatory challenges. Issues...

Platform ecosystem has spawned a rapidly growing data-driven economy across the globe. The emerging platform models have been adjudged to have a positive impact on quality of life by engendering economic growth. However, as technologies become more intelligent and intrusive, there is a...