Superstars in two-sided markets: exclusives or not?

Elias Carroni, Leonardo Madio () and Shiva Shekhar

No 20-1083, TSE Working Papers from Toulouse School of Economics (TSE)

Abstract: This article studies incentives for a premium provider (Superstar) to offer exclusive contracts to competing platforms mediating the interactions between consumers and firms. When platform competition is intense, more consumers affiliate with the platform favored by Superstar’s exclusive deal. This mechanism is self-reinforcing as more firms follow consumer decisions and some singlehome on the favored platform. Our model shows that the presence of indirect network externalities may overturn the common conclusion in the one-sided literature that exclusivity could be deemed as anti-competitive. Exclusivity can be welfare-enhancing and a vertical merger (platform-Superstar) may make non-exclusivity more likely than if the Superstar was independent.

Keywords: exclusive contracts; platforms; two-sided markets; marquee player (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: K21 L13 L22 L86 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020-03
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-com, nep-cta, nep-ind, nep-law and nep-mic
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

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Related works:
Working Paper: Superstars in two-sided markets: exclusives or not? (2019)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:tse:wpaper:124158

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