The economics of platform competition: compatibility, standardization and piracy

2013

This thesis studies the platform competition with compatibility, standardization and piracy. In the first chapter we study the role played by expectations, the strength of the network externality and product differentiation in the strategic decisions of the platforms regarding compatibility and price competition. The decision problem is modeled as a two-stage game. In the first stage platforms simultaneously and non-cooperatively choose the degree of compatibility and in the second stage platforms compete in prices. More specifically, we solve a two-stage game in which duopolists decide simultaneously and non cooperatively the degree of compatibility between their products and they compete …