Understanding the implications of digital platform strategies on user welfare has become a crucial issue for policy makers and economists alike. In payments, distributed ledger technologies such as the blockchain have introduced new models of platform governance in the form of vertically...

We show that competing firms relax overall competition by lowering future barriers to entry. We illustrate our findings in a two-period model with adverse selection where banks strategically commit to disclose borrower information. By doing this, they invite rivals to enter their market....