Two-sided Markets, a progress report精选.pdf

RAND Journal of Economics Vol. 37, No. 3, Autumn 2006 pp. 645–667 Two-sided markets: a progress report Jean-Charles Rochet∗ and Jean Tirole∗∗ We provide a road map to the burgeoning literature on two-sided markets and present new results. We identify two-sided markets with markets in which the structure, and not only the level of prices charged by platforms, matters. The failure of the Coase theorem is necessary but not sufficient for two-sidedness. We build a model integrating usage and membership externalities that unifies two hitherto disparate strands of the literature emphasizing either form of externality, and obtain new results on the mix of membership and usage charges when price setting or bargaining determine payments between end-users. 1. Introduction 1 Two-sided (or, more generally, multi-sided ) markets are roughly defined as markets in which one or several platforms enable interactions between end-users and try to get the two (or multiple) sides “on board” by appropriately charging each side. That is, platforms court each side while attempting to make, or at least not lose, money overall. Examples of two-sided markets readily come to mind. Videogame platforms, such as Atari, Nintendo, Sega, Sony Play Station, and Microsoft X-Box, need to attract gamers in order to persuade game developers to design or port games to their platform, and they need games to induce gamers to buy and use their videogame console. Software producers court both users and application developers, client and server sides, or readers and writers. Portals, TV networks, and newspape