Modern information technology, especially Internet, has revolutionized many indus-
tries. Amazon, eBay, and Taobao changed how people buy and sell goods; Google,
Yahoo!, and Wikipedia changed how people acquire information; YouTube, Net
ix, and
iTune Stores changed how people enjoy movies and musics, UBer, Airbnb, and Instacart
changed how idle resources (sometimes human resources) are utilized. Even education is
changed: Coursera and Edx are trying to take away professors' jobs!
Interestingly, many of the above companies do their business by running platforms
to connect supplies and demands. More interestingly, not all of them are doing this.
What is a platform? What is the economic theory underlying platforms? When is
running a platform a good idea? How to price and govern a platform? How to deal with
competition? In this course, we give students some tools to address these questions.