Seminar
Past
A Framework for Detection, Measurement, and Welfare Analysis of Platform Bias
Joel Waldfogel
- Date7 November 2023
- Time 14h00 - 15h00
- Room Zoom Meeting
Abstract
Regulators are responding to growing platform power with curbs on platforms’ potentially biased exercise of power, creating urgent needs for both a workable definition of platform bias and ways to detect and measure it. We develop a simple equilibrium framework in which consumers choose among ranked alternatives, while the platform chooses product display ranks based on product characteristics and prices. We define the platform’s ranks to be biased if they deliver outcomes that lie below the frontier that maximizes a weighted sum of seller and consumer surplus. This framework leads to two bias testing approaches, which we compare using Monte Carlo simulations, as well as data from Amazon, Expedia, and Spotify. We then illustrate the use of our structural framework directly, producing estimates of both platform bias and its welfare cost. The EU’s Digital Services Act’s provision for researcher data access would allow easy implementation of our approach in contexts important to policy makers.
Related document(s)
Other seminars
Past
Decoding Rankings: Consumer Search, Price Competition, and Platform Regulation
-
Seminar
-
Economics of Platforms Seminar
-
Date 1 October 2026
-
Place Zoom
-
Speaker or organiser Hanlin Zhao
Details
Past
Impressing the Algorithm
-
Seminar
-
Economics of Platforms Seminar
-
Date 3 September 2026
-
Place Online
-
Speaker or organiser Sandro Shelegia (University of Pompeu Fabra, Barcelona)
Details
Past
The Impact of Google AI Overviews on Publisher Traffic and User Experience: Evidence from a Field Experiment
-
Seminar
-
Economics of Platforms Seminar
-
Date 2 July 2026
-
Place Online
-
Speaker or organiser Saharsh Agarwal (Indian School of Business)
Details