DP9164 Exclusionary Pricing in a Two-Sided Market

Author(s):	Massimo Motta, Helder Vasconcelos
Publication Date:	October 2012
Keyword(s):	Demand externalities, Predation, Two-sided markets
JEL(s):	L11, L13, L41
Programme Areas:	Industrial Organization
Link to this Page:	cepr.org/active/publications/discussion_papers/dp.php?dpno=9164

In this paper we provide a new way of modelling two-sided markets, and we then use this model to study anti-competitive conduct in an asymmetric two-sided market which captures the main features of some recent antitrust cases. We show that below-cost pricing on one market side can allow an incumbent firm to exclude a more efficient rival which does not have a customer base yet. This exclusionary behaviour is the more likely to occur the more mature the market and the stronger the established customer base of the incumbent.