Digital platforms

DIPVAR is a five-year research project led by Özlem Bedre-Defolie and funded by a prestigious European Research Council (ERC) Starting Grant, under the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation program. DIPVAR will offer a closer look at globally operating digital platforms, such as Amazon, Alibaba, and Google by first creating models to capture their most important peculiar aspects and then by examining the effects of dominant platforms’ practices on prices, variety, and quality provision to buyers and small rivals. On this basis, DIPVAR ultimately aims to make recommendations for an effective competition policy and regulation in digital markets, which could greatly improve consumer welfare in the European Union.