Design of Online Platforms

The past decade has seen the advent of online marketplaces, such as online retail markets, adauctions, online labor markets, ride-sharing platforms, short-term rentals, markets for virtual currencies, and online dating platforms. Online marketplaces bring forth new challenges, such as the design of matching mechanisms within the platform, the aggregation and distribution of information. By their nature, there is a wealth of data available to study these marketplaces, which creates the opportunity for their empirical study. Online platforms require a truly interdisciplinary approach to market design: empirical work can inform the development of new theoretical research, while theoretical tools can be put at the service of empirical research.

The workshop will bring together researchers from a broad set of disciplines including computer science, operations, and economics, focusing on theoretical, empirical, and experimental issues related to design of online platforms.

Topics including but not limited to the following are of interest:

• Rating systems/information in platforms

• Competition in platforms

• Network externalities within and across platforms

• Matching mechanisms and algorithms

• Congestion and search frictions in platforms

Contributions grounded in applications are especially encouraged. See call for more details.

Important Dates

• Submissions: May 21, 2021

• Notifications: June 21, 2021

• Workshop: July 23, 2021