Two-Sided B2B Platforms

This chapter provides a roadmap to the burgeoning literature on two-sided markets with a specific focus on BtoB market places. On-line intermediation involves two-sided network effects between buyers and sellers, and the implications for optimal BtoB platforms’ tariffs are discussed. The chapter discusses first the monopoly case, drawing attention to the distinction between upfront registration and transaction fees. Then the competitive case is discussed, with different degrees of differentiation, the distinction between single-homing and multi-homing, and different business models. The last section is devoted to non-price issues such as tying, the design of the matching process and the ownership structure.

Two-Sided Markets and Electronic Intermediaries

The object of this paper is to discuss on-line intermediation from the perspective of two-sided markets. It builds a simple model of the intermediation activity when trading partners are involved in a commercial relationship and uses it to illustrate some of the results that emerge in the two-sided market literature, as well as to discuss some new aspects. The first part concentrates on a monopoly intermediation service and discusses both efficient pricing and monopoly pricing. The second part discusses the nature of competition between intermediaries, addressing issues as competitive crosssubsidies, multi-homing or tying.intermediation, two-sided market, network, cross-subsidy, tying

The roles of reputation and transparency on the behavior of biased experts

We analyze situations in which an expert is biased toward some decision but cares also about his reputation in the market for experts. The information the expert reveals decreases as his bias moves toward stronger preference for the status quo. We show that it is optimal to publicly disclose both the expert's contribution and his identity. Surprisingly, revealing the intensity of the expert's bias doesn't always improve the information he reveals in equilibrium. The presence of a second expert raises the first expert's incentives to report truthfully when reports are public, but reduces them when they are secret. In particular, having an option to call another expert may be detrimental in terms of information production if reports are not public. Finally, sequential consultation of experts reduces the information obtained when reports are public, but raises it when they are secret.Experts, Bias, Reputation