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Regulating platform fees - Chengsi Wang

Tracks
Room: CBE LT2
Thursday, June 29, 2023
9:00 AM - 9:30 AM

Overview

INDUSTRIAL ORGANISAITION Convenor: Rohan Pitchford


Speaker

Dr Chengsi Wang
Senior Lecturer
Monash University

Regulating platform fees

Abstract

We consider a platform that helps consumers more easily discover and transact with suppliers. Such platforms have come to dominate many sectors of the economy, raising issues about the high fees they charge suppliers, especially since they tend to commoditize the suppliers they aggregate. We show that in a baseline setting, the welfare-maximizing fee exceeds the platform's marginal cost by the extent to which suppliers obtain lower markups on the platform than in the direct channel. We examine the robustness of this simple principle, and explore factors that make the efficient fee higher or lower than this level.

Biography

Chengsi Wang got his PhD in economics from the University of New South Wales in 2012. Before joining Monash, he worked at the University of Mannheim from 2012 to 2017. His main research interests include applied theory, industrial organization, and competition policy.
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