Bargaining and Network Effects in Two-Sided Platforms: Evidence from Online Healthcare

All authors certify that they have no affiliations with or involvement in any organization or entity with any financial interest or nonfinancial interest in the subject matter or materials discussed in this manuscript. The firm that provided the data did not have the right to comment or request changes on the manuscript. This paper is based on one of the essays that comprise the first author’s dissertation. This paper was previously circulated under the title “Online Healthcare Platform Evolution: The Interplay of Bargaining and Network Effects.” The authors are grateful to an anonymous company for providing the data. The authors thank Francine Lafontaine, Dan Ackerberg, Kanishka Misra, Vibhanshu Abhishek, Lingling Zhang, Jiajia Zhan, Mimansa Bairathi, Chaoran Liu, and participants at various research seminars and conferences for their helpful comments and feedback. These include the Cambridge University Marketing Seminar; the Imperial College London Economic and Public Policy Seminar; the Singapore Management University Marketing Seminar; the Temple University Marketing Seminar; the University of Essex Marketing Seminar; the Beijing Institute of Technology Research Seminar; the 2022 London Quant Marketing Conference; the 2022 China-India Insights Conference; the 2022 University of Texas Dallas Frontiers of Research in Marketing Science Conference; the 2021 Conference on Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, and Business Analytics; the 2021 INFORMS Marketing Science Conference; and the 2021 European Marketing Academy Conference. Special thanks go to Ruobing Sun, Jinyu Zhang, and Lin Zhe for their excellent research assistance. Any errors are the authors’ own.