We analyze the best price clauses (BPCs) of online travel agents (OTAs) using meta-search price data of nearly 30,000 hotels in different countries. We find that BPCs influence the pricing and availability of hotel rooms across online sales channels. In particular, hotels publish their offers...

We analyze the best price clauses (BPCs) of online travel agents (OTAs) using meta-search price data of more than 45,000 hotels in different countries. Although OTAs apparently have not changed their standard commission rates following the partial ban of BPCs in Europe, we find that BPCs do...

Dominant or apparently dominant internet platform increasingly become subject to both antitrust investigations and further-reaching political calls for regulation. While Google is currently in the focus of the discussion, the next candidate is already on the horizon - the ubiquitous online...

When sellers join a platform to sell their products, the platform operator may restrict their strategic decisions. In fact, several platform operators impose most-favored treatment or no-discrimination rules (NDRs), asking sellers not to offer better sales conditions elsewhere. In this paper, I...

We investigate whether online travel agents (OTAs) assign hotels worse positions in their search results if these set lower hotel prices at other OTAs or on their own websites. We formally characterize how an OTA can use such a strategy to reduce price differentiation across distribution...

Leading retailers have opened up their online storefronts to competitors by operating marketplaces for third party sellers. We develop a model of entry and price competition at the product market level, and show that the retailer softens competition through control of the storefront and benefits...

This paper analyses the dynamics of hotel prices listed on Booking.com in the period 2014-16. This period is characterised by the most important antitrust decisions regarding the use of price parity clauses by online travel agencies (OTAs) in the EU. First, we document the dynamics of hotel...

When sellers join a platform to sell their products, the platform operator may restrict their strategic decisions. In fact, several platform operators impose most-favored treatment or no-discrimination rules (NDRs), asking sellers not to offer better sales conditions elsewhere.In this paper, I...

We investigate how the adoption of price parity clauses (PPCs) by established platforms affects the listing decisions of suppliers. PPCs have been widely adopted by online travel agencies (OTAs) to force client hotels not to charge lower prices in alternative sales channels. We find that OTAs...