FOR-PROFIT SEARCH PLATFORMS

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Niedermayer, Andras; Shneyerov, Artyom
• 署名单位: University of Mannheim; Concordia University - Canada
• 刊物名称: INTERNATIONAL ECONOMIC REVIEW
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0020-6598
• DOI: 10.1111/iere.12070
• 发表日期: 2014
• 页码: 765-789
• 关键词: 2-sided incomplete information; MARKETS; COMPETITION; intermediation; CONVERGENCE; mechanisms

摘要

We consider optimal pricing by a profit-maximizing platform running a dynamic search and matching market. Buyers and sellers enter in cohorts over time, meet, and bargain under private information. The optimal centralized mechanism, which involves posting a bid-ask spread, can be decentralized through participation fees charged by the intermediary to both sides. The sum of buyers' and sellers' fees equals the sum of inverse hazard rates of the marginal types, and their ratio equals the ratio of buyers' and sellers' bargaining weights. We also show that a monopolistic intermediary in a search market may be welfare enhancing.