Digital platforms: Pricing, variety and quality provision
Funding type: European Research Council (ERC) Starting Grant
Funding period: 2020-2025, the new beneficiary is the European University Institute (EUI) as of September 2023
Research team: Özlem Bedre-Defolie (ESMT Berlin), Willy Lefez (ESMT Berlin), Atara Oliver (former ESMT Berlin)
Digital platforms, such as Amazon, Alibaba, Google, have become important global players. Their practices have led to significant anti-trust and regulatory scrutiny, and interventions. The existing theoretical models are not suited for the analysis of most of digital platforms as they fail to capture their important aspects and dynamics. This project’s first goal is to develop tractable and applicable models of markets with digital platforms capturing their unique features. The second goal is to investigate the implications of digital platforms’ business practices on prices, variety and quality provision to buyers, on small rivals, and on potential platform entry. The findings of this project will highlight potential distortions in these multi-billion markets and ultimately suggest effective policy recommendations for competition policy in digital markets, which can greatly improve consumer welfare in the EU.
More detailed information can be found on the official project website.