We consider platform competition in a two-sided market, where the two sides (buyers and sellers) have ex-ante uncertainty and ex- post asymmetric information concerning the value of a new tech- nology. We find that platform competition may lead to a market failure: competition may result in a...

We consider platform competition in a two-sided market, where the two sides (buyers and sellers) have ex-ante uncertainty and ex-post asymmetric information concerning the value of a new technology. We find that platform competition may lead to a market failure: competition may result in a lower...

The concept of two-sided markets tries to describe certain characteristics of today's big platforms. Despite attracting a great deal of academic interest, closer inspection shows that the theory suffers from a great deal of ambiguity. This paper attempts to highlight these fundamental...