How to segment a search market: Information design and directed search

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Mekonnen, Teddy
• 署名单位: Brown University
• 刊物名称: THEORETICAL ECONOMICS
• ISSN/ISSBN: 1933-6837
• DOI: 10.3982/TE5350
• 发表日期: 2026
• 关键词: equilibrium; EFFICIENCY; disclosure; models

摘要

This paper examines when the public provision of information in search markets improves welfare. I consider a two-sided frictional search market in which buyers match with vertically differentiated sellers. The market is segmented into submarkets based on seller types. Such segmentation serves as a public signal that buyers use to direct their search. Given a segmentation, I characterize both the socially efficient and the equilibrium allocation of buyers across submarkets, and identify a Hosios-type condition under which the equilibrium allocation is efficient. I then analyze the design of surplus-maximizing segmentations, showing that the nature of search externalities determines when the constrained-efficient segmentation fully separates seller types or pools them into at most a binary partition.