American Economic Review Vol. 104 No. 5 2014

Mobile Computing: The Next Platform Rivalry

Timothy F. Bresnahan¹; Shane Greenstein²

¹ Department of Economics, Stanford University, 579 Serra Mall, Stanford, CA 94305 (e-mail: ). · ² Kellogg School of Management, Northwestern University, 2001 Sheridan Rd., Evanston, IL 60208 (e-mail: )

Abstract

Competition to become one of several dominant mobile platforms is intense. Platforms compete for developers, who create applications which make the platform valuable for users. Why doesn't one form of platform governance emerge as superior? This essay will stress the reasons for differentiation and proposes a new argument linked to a platform's “hierarchy.” Hierarchical governance features can help at one moment but then get in the way at a later time. These arguments are illustrated by different approaches to platform governance taken by the major mobile platform sponsors of recent years.

DOI

10.1257/aer.104.5.475

Volume

104

Issue

5

Pages

475-480

Language

en

Sources

bibtex:phds-export.bib openalex crossref

Cite

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