Cambridge Yearbook of European Legal Studies has published an article by Jens-Uwe Franck, Professor of Law at the University of Mannheim, and Martin Peitz, CERRE Research Fellow and Professor of Economics at the University of Mannheim on market definition in the platform economy. The article builds on the CERRE report ‘Market Definition and Market Power in the Platform Economy’ authored by the pair in May 2019.
Abstract: The article addresses the role market definition can play for EU competition practice in the platform economy. The focus is on intermediaries that bring together groups of users whose decisions are interdependent, which therefore are commonly referred to as ‘two-sided platforms’. The authors address challenges to market definition that accompany these cross-group network effects, assess current practice in a number of competition cases, and provide guidance for adapting practice to properly account for the economic forces shaping markets with two-sided platforms. They ask whether and when a single market can be defined that encompasses both sides and they advocate a multi-markets approach that takes account of cross-market linkages, acknowledges the existence of zero-price markets, and properly accounts for the homing behaviour of market participants.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/cel.2021.13
Read the full article in the Cambridge Yearbook of European Legal Studies (December 2021) and discover a related discussion paper on SSRN here.
