Bjørn Olav Johansen, UoB and BECCLE, and Lars Sørgard, NHH and BECCLE.
Photo: Matias Helgheim and Eirik Helland Urke
11-12 December, BECCLE’s Lars Sørgard and Bjørn Olav Johansen took part in EconomiX’s Law and Economic Policy International Workshop on Antitrust for platform and network markets.
Lars Sørgard held the keynote adress ‘Antitrust in two-sided markeds”, and Bjørn Olav Johansen presented the paper ‘Resale price maintenance in two-sided markets’.
The workshop, held at at the EconomiX research center atl’Université Paris Ouest Nanterre La Défense, addressed antitrust policy for platform and network markets.
Two-sided and network markets have been the object of substantial research over the past decade. One important result of the economic literature dealing with firms’ behavior on such markets is that, due to the necessity to balance the interests of two different types of customers, related by cross-group externalities, it is often possible to see firms adopt strategies that would be sub-optimal otherwise. Amongst others, the workshop addressed the following questions:
- Can the usual tools for traditional/one-sided market definition be employed? Is there need to use different tools, or adapt existing ones?
- In what respect is a two-sided or network market analysis important for the competitive assessment?
- How is market power to be correctly assessed on such markets?
- Should Competition policy be different in such markets?
- What was the impact of two-sidedness or network effects for recent decisions of the Commission/National competition authorities?
Papers was presented by Markus Reisinger, WHU – Otto Beisheim School of Management, Thomas Cortade, BETA-CNRS and University of Lorraine, Bjørn Olav Johansen, University of Bergen and Bergen Center for Competition Law and Economics, Germain Gaudin, Düsseldorf Institute for Competition Economics, Lapo Filistrucchi, University of Florence and Tilburg University, CenTER and TILEC, Marc Ivaldi, Toulouse School of Economics, Stefan Behringer, Mercator School of Management, University Duisburg-Essen, and Antoine Chapsal, MAPP Economics, and Anne Perrot, Nicolas Petit, Etienne Pfister and Florian Wagner-von Papp chaired in a panel discussion.
Lars Sørgards slides for the keynote address is available here: ‘Antitrust in two-sided markets’.
More information about the workshop is available at the workshop’s web page.
EconomiX is a research center in economics operated by the French CNRS (National Centre for Scientific Research) and the University of Paris Ouest Nanterre La Défense. It combines theoretical and applied research in various fields of economics.