Prices and Network Externalities in Two-Sided Markets: The Belgian Newspaper Industry

This paper discusses the newspaper industry in Belgium from a two-sided market perspective.
The reader and advertizing market for printed media are closely interlinked with each other by bilateral network externalities. This requires a specific structural model to estimate demand parameters for both markets since a profit maximizing publisher takes into account those externalities. We estimate network effects and demand elasticities for Belgian newspaper
publishers to assess market power and the degree of competition in the newspaper market,
which experienced a large consolidation wave over the last decade.