Information Management and Pricing in Platform Markets

Authors :: Bruno Jullien
Alessandro Pavan
Toulouse School of Economics (TSE)
Université Toulouse 1 Capitole (UT1)
Université Fédérale Toulouse Midi-Pyrénées-Université Fédérale Toulouse Midi-Pyrénées-École des hautes études en sciences sociales (EHESS)-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS)-Institut National de Recherche pour l’Agriculture, l’Alimentation et l’Environnement (INRAE)
Northwestern University [Evanston]
Center for Economic Policy Research (CEPR)
CEPR
ANR-19-P3IA-0004,ANITI,Artificial and Natural Intelligence Toulouse Institute(2019)
Source :: Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies, Oxford University Press (OUP), 2019, 86 (4), pp.1666-1703. ⟨10.1093/restud/rdy040⟩, The Review of Economic Studies
Publication Year :: 2018
Publisher :: Oxford University Press (OUP), 2018.
Abstract: We study platform markets in which the information about users’ preferences is dispersed. First, we show how the dispersion of information introduces idiosyncratic uncertainty about participation decisions and how the latter shapes the elasticity of the demands and the equilibrium prices. We then study the effects on profits, consumer surplus, and welfare of platform design, blogs, forums, conferences, advertising campaigns, post-launch disclosures, and other information management policies affecting the agents’ ability to predict participation decisions on the other side of the market.

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