What are the Strategies pursued by Platforms, Buyers and Sellers in the Online Marketplace?

Jonas von Wangenheim

Since the turn of the century, shopping has experienced an undeniable shift, away from the High Street and towards large online platforms. In this video, JONAS VON WANGENHEIM analyzes the efficiency of online marketplaces, placing particular focus on factors including information provided to customers, prices and refund rules. Using game theory to analyze strategic interactions between platforms, sellers and consumers, the research finds that fuller information and more flexible refund policies are not necessarily of benefit to consumers. Further work will use the tools developed to analyze different contractual settings in the digital world.

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.21036/LTPUB101170

Researcher

Jonas von Wangenheim is an Assistant Professor in Microeconomic Theory at the University of Bonn. He has previously held research positions at Berlin’s Humboldt University and the University of Mannheim. His research focuses on contract theory, information economics and industrial organization. Von Wangenheim’s work has been published in the Journal of Economic Theory and Management Science.

University of Bonn (Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität Bonn)

Bonn is one of the large universities in Germany, with around 36,000 students, 550 professors, 6,500 other staff staff. It offers a wide disciplinary spectrum comprising some 200 different degree programmes, from Agricultural Science to Tibetan Studies. This diversity is what characterizes Bonn as a full-range university with a strong international orientation. In many international university rankings Bonn is placed among the 100 best universities in the world.Its academic and research profile features internationally renowned specializations in the fields of Mathematics, Physics/Astronomy, Economics, Chemistry, Pharma Research, Biosciences, Genetic Medicine, Neurosciences and Philosophy/Ethics. Other disciplines, such as Geography and Law, are of outstanding importance within the German research scene. The Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität Bonn is rooted in a long tradition going back almost 200 years. It was founded in 1818 by Friedrich-Wilhelm III, the Prussian king whose name it bears. Imbued with the spirit of Wilhelm von Humboldt, the university quickly joined the circle of Germany's most distinguished universities and became a major pole of attraction for leading scholars as well as students.The list of famous professors ranges from the astronomer Friedrich Wilhelm Argelander (1799-1875), through the chemist August Kekulé von Stradonitz (1829–1896) and political economist Josef Schumpeter (1883–1950) to the philologist Ernst Robert Curtius (1886–1956) and the theologists Karl Barth (1886–1968) and Joseph Ratzinger (born 1927), now Pope Benedict XVI. Bonn's best-known students include Heinrich Heine, Karl Marx, Friedrich Nietzsche, and Konrad Adenauer. The university is proud of a long list of award-winning scientists and scholars, with about twenty Leibniz Prize winners and around thirty ERC grantees. In the last three decades two professors have received the Nobel Prize: Wolfgang Paul (for Physics, 1989) and Reinhard Selten (for Economics, 1994). (Source: University of Bonn)

Original Publication

Optimal Information Design of Online Marketplaces with Return Rights

Jonas von Wangenheim

Published in 2025