TY  - JOUR
AU  - Jin,Ginger Zhe
AU  - Rysman,Marc
TI  - Platform Pricing at Sports Card Conventions
JF  - National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper Series
VL  - No. 17959
PY  - 2012
Y2  - March 2012
UR  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w17959
L1  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w17959.pdf
N1  - Author contact info:
Ginger Z. Jin
University of Maryland
Department of Economics
3115F Tydings Hall
College Park, MD  20742-7211
Tel: 301/405-3484
Fax: 301/405-3542
E-Mail: jin@econ.umd.edu

Marc Rysman
Department of Economics
Boston University
270 Bay State Road
Boston, MA 02215
Tel: 617-353-3086
Fax: 617-353-4449
E-Mail: mrysman@bu.edu
AB  - We study a new data set of US sports card conventions in order to evaluate the pricing theory of two-sided markets. Conventions are two-sided because organizers must set fees to attract both consumers and dealers. We have detailed information on consumer price, dealer price and, since most conventions are local, the market structure for conventions. We present several findings: first, consumer pricing decreases with competition at any reasonable distance, but pricing to dealers is insensitive to competition and in longer distances even increases with competition. Second, when consumer price is zero (and thus constrained), dealer price decreases more strongly with competition. These results are compatible with existing models of two-sided markets, but are difficult to explain without such models.
ER  -