Working Paper

Does Envelopment through Data Advantage Call for New Regulation?

Gregor Langus, Vilen Lipatov
CESifo, Munich, 2021

CESifo Working Paper No. 8932

Envelopment is an effective form of market entry that facilitates competition among platforms. Nevertheless, many commentators have focused on the anticompetitive potential of envelopment, and some have argued for regulation of platforms because of that concern. These calls for regulation are not supported by robust formal analysis or comprehensive empirical evidence. We analyze a visible recent contribution by Condorelli and Padilla (2020a,b) and explain why the model that they put forward is not ripe for policy advice in relation to concerns with envelopment.

CESifo Category
Industrial Organisation
Economics of Digitization
Keywords: envelopment, entry deterrence, data, competition of multi-market platforms
JEL Classification: K210, L130, L400