Platform Papers 2024 Year in Review
It’s that time of the year again. Time to look back and reflect.
Platform Papers is a blog about platform competition and Big Tech. The blog is linked to platformpapers.com, an online repository that collects and organizes academic research on platform competition.
This blog is written by Joost Rietveld.
It has been another eventful year for platform competition research—mirroring similar dynamism in the ‘real world’ of platform competition.
There were 98 academic articles published on platform competition in 2024, up from 91 in 2023—that is a 7.69% year-on-year increase. It is the strongest year for platform competition publications on record, though some of these articles will ultimately be published in 2025 when they transition from ‘Online First’ to print publications.[1] There are currently 731 platform papers, published between 1985-2024.
Management is the largest academic field in which platform papers are published (36% of all published articles in 2024), followed by information systems (26%), marketing (22%), and economics (16%).
Platform competition articles published in marketing journals have steadily increased over the last several years—both proportionally and in real terms. In 2018, there was only one platform paper published in marketing (representing 3% of all publications that year), while in 2024 this increased to 22 articles (out of 98). This mirrors an uptake in scholarly interest in platform competition research by marketing scholars.
Looking at the academic journals publishing platform papers, the top 5 most popular journals in 2024 are Information Systems Research (18 published articles), Marketing Science (13), Research Policy (8), Strategic Management Journal (7) and Journal of Economics & Management Strategy (7). For Information Systems Research, Marketing Science, and Research Policy these numbers reflect increases from prior years, possibly pointing to an upward trend for these journals.
What is a Platform Paper? Follow the link for a detailed explanation.
The graph below depicts the top 10 academic journals publishing platform papers. The figure can be interpreted as information systems and economics scholars having clear ‘homes’ for platform competition research (e.g., Information Systems Research and International Journal of Industrial Organization) whereas research in management on platform competition is much more scattered across multiple journals. Indeed, there are 28 different management journals that publish platform competition research, although Strategic Management Journal has emerged as the designated outlet for management scholars researching platform competition.
Research on platform competition can be broadly categorized into four conceptual themes: 1) research on network effects, pricing strategies and winner-take-all dynamics (28% of all articles published in 2024); 2) research on corporate scope such as platforms competing with complementors (19%); 3) research on the effects of heterogeneity in platforms and complementors (27%); and, 4) research on platform ecosystem orchestration and governance (26%).
Diving a little deeper, in 2024 there is a substantial cluster of platform papers addressing the effects of platform dominance and the effects of regulation.
For example, Robert Akerlof and co-authors propose a model of how network effects affect competition in the “new economy.” In another paper, Ohad Atad and Yaron Yehezkel model the effect of an antitrust policy that prohibits platforms from charging predatory prices. Other papers invert the perspective by looking at market dynamics within platforms. Frank Schlütter, for instance, investigates the incentive and ability of a platform to limit competition between sellers through a platform most-favored nation (PMFN) policy. While regulatory intervention in such cases might be desired, Zhuoxin Li and Gang Wang show that when policies aren’t designed carefully, they can lead to unintended consequences (also see their excellent Platform Papers blog). Yet another subset of papers (Chung et al; Motta and Shelegia) addresses the topic of platforms expanding their activities into adjacent businesses, which can have far-reaching implications for rival platforms and complementors.
Half of all articles included in the Platform Papers reference dashboard analyze empirical data (e.g., econometric analysis, multiple case study, mixed methods research). The top 10 empirical settings is shown in the graph above. Mobile app stores have now clearly overtaken video game consoles as “the canonical setting” for platform competition research. Whereas from 2010 to 2013 there were no papers analyzing mobile app store data, over the last six years there were three times as many articles studying mobile app stores than there were analyzing video game consoles. It is also reassuring to see that researchers increasingly pool data from multiple empirical contexts—previously a gap in the literature, which Melissa Schilling and I identified as a fruitful area for future research.
It is good to see the field evolve, indeed. This is further signified by the top-cited platform papers by other platform competition articles. In the two decades following the publication of the first platform papers in 1985, the field skewed heavily towards economics, as economists tried to quantify the presence and impact of network effects. Some of these early publications still form the bedrock of platform competition research today, as canonical articles such as those by Rochet and Tirole, Katz and Shapiro, as well as Mark Armstrong are among the top-cited articles.
However, looking at more recent publications, a shift is noticeable toward platform papers in management and information systems being among the most-cited articles—despite a continuation of economics research on platform competition. A recent article by Jacobides, Cennamo, and Gawer has clearly influenced the field and is on its way to become a modern classic. Notably, it is impressive to see the staying power of the likes of Kevin Boudreau and Geoff Parker and Marshall Van Alstyne who all have several top cited publications multiple years apart—sometimes even decades!
Fuelled by the growth in platform competition research, Platform Papers as an outlet for high-quality, research-based blogposts on platform competition has continued to grow, too. The Substack currently counts nearly 1,300 subscribers from 79 countries—a 64% increase from year-end 2023. Thank you for following along and for supporting Platform Papers—especially those on paid subscription plans! Thank you also to all the authors who translated their research into interesting and digestible blogposts.
Top 5 most-read Platform-Paper blogs in 2024
1. Growing or Eating the Complementors’ Pie?
2. Five Ways to Boost Platform Growth
3. The Hidden Cost of Platform Diversification
For 2025, it is my goal to continue publishing Platform Paper posts and to (slightly) increase the frequency of doing so. I am also planning to add an updates section at the end of each post covering recent and noteworthy platform-competition events. I look forward to presenting Platform Papers in 2025, including at the Workshop on Platform Analytics (WoPA) at the University of California, San Diego and the annual summit of the European Digital Platform Research Network (EU-DPRN) at IE Business School in Madrid.
If you have any feedback or suggestions for improvement, feel free to reach out to me.
Happy Holidays and see you soon!
Joost
[1] Last year, I reported that 101 articles were published in 2023. Some of these articles were ‘Online First’ publications that were later published in print 2024. The publication records for these articles have been updated to reflect the year of print publication. Similar to 2023, some of the articles included in the current 2024 count will roll over to 2025 when they transition from Online First to print publications.
Platform Papers is published, curated and maintained by Joost Rietveld.