Market Structure in the Network Age

In this paper three aspects of competition in ecommerce are investigated: marketing, interconnection, and price matching.

Abstract

E-commerce will undoubtedly change the way business is done. But as we have said elsewhere, “technology changes, economic laws do not.” Despite the changes introduced by e-commerce, many of the fundamental principles of competition will still be relevant. In this paper I investigate three aspects of competition in ecommerce: marketing, interconnection, and price matching. In each case I will describe the phenomenon, illustrate its relevance for ecommerce, and describe some research issues raised.