A freshman student in economics or a Nobel prize-winning macroeconomist who has lately stumbled across a journal or two in industrial organization economics may be somewhat perplexed or confused by many references to two-sided markets. Surely, is it not the case that all markets have two sides,...

Die Durchdringung der Wirtschaft mit den Produkten und Leistungen der modernen Informations- und Kommunikationstechnologien (IuK) kann als zentraler Bestandteil der tiefgreifenden ökonomischen Wandlungsprozesse der beiden letzten Jahrzehnte angesehen werden. Die Untersuchung konzentriert sich...

This paper provides an introduction to the economics of two-sided platforms (2SPs) and its application to competition policy issues. 2SPs cater to two or more distinct groups of customers. Members of one customer group need members of the other group for a variety of reasons that we explore. The...

Two-sided platforms (2SPs) cater to two or more distinct groups of customers, facilitating value-creating interactions between them. The village market and the village matchmaker were 2SPs; eBay and Match.com are more recent examples. Other examples include payment card systems, magazines,...