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On the Evolution of Market Institutions: The Platform Design Paradox

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  • Carlos Alós-Ferrer
  • Georg Kirchsteiger
  • Markus Walzl

Abstract

We study competition among market designers who create new trading platforms, when boundedly rational traders learn to select among them. We ask whether efficient platforms, leading to market - clearing trading outcomes, will dominate the market in the long run. If several market designers are competing, we find that traders learn to select non-market clearing platforms with prices systematically above the market-clearing level, provided at least one such platform is introduced by a market designer. This in turn leads market designers to introduce non-market clearing platforms. Hence platform competition induces non-competitive market outcomes.

Suggested Citation

  • Carlos Alós-Ferrer & Georg Kirchsteiger & Markus Walzl, 2007. "On the Evolution of Market Institutions: The Platform Design Paradox," CESifo Working Paper Series 2012, CESifo.
    • Handle: RePEc:ces:ceswps:_2012
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    Cited by:

    1. Carlos Alós-Ferrer & Georg Kirchsteiger, 2015. "Learning and market clearing: theory and experiments," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 60(2), pages 203-241, October.
    2. Carlos Alós-Ferrer & Nick Netzer, 2015. "Robust stochastic stability," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 58(1), pages 31-57, January.
    3. Hedlund, Jonas & Oyarzun, Carlos, 2016. "Imitation in Heterogeneous Populations," Working Papers 0625, University of Heidelberg, Department of Economics.
    4. Carlos Alós-Ferrer & Johannes Buckenmaier & Georg Kirchsteiger, 2020. "Do Traders Learn to Select Efficient Market Institutions?," ECON - Working Papers 364, Department of Economics - University of Zurich.
    5. Tsakas, Nikolas, 2017. "Diffusion by imitation: The importance of targeting agents," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 139(C), pages 118-151.
    6. Gary Charness & Francesco Feri & Miguel A. Meléndez-Jiménez & Matthias Sutter, 2023. "An Experimental Study on the Effects of Communication, Credibility, and Clustering in Network Games," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 105(6), pages 1530-1543, November.
    7. Jonathan Newton, 2018. "Evolutionary Game Theory: A Renaissance," Games, MDPI, vol. 9(2), pages 1-67, May.
    8. Carlos Alós-Ferrer & Johannes Buckenmaier & Georg Kirchsteiger, 2022. "Do traders learn to select efficient market institutions?," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 25(1), pages 203-228, February.
    9. Fei Shi, 2015. "Long-run technology choice with endogenous local capacity," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 59(2), pages 377-399, June.
    10. Simon Weidenholzer, 2010. "Coordination Games and Local Interactions: A Survey of the Game Theoretic Literature," Games, MDPI, vol. 1(4), pages 1-35, November.
    11. Alós-Ferrer, Carlos & Buckenmaier, Johannes, 2017. "Trader matching and the selection of market institutions," Journal of Mathematical Economics, Elsevier, vol. 69(C), pages 118-127.
    12. Alós-Ferrer, Carlos & Kirchsteiger, Georg, 2017. "Market selection by boundedly-rational traders under constant returns to scale," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 153(C), pages 51-53.
    13. Olga A. Rud & Jean Paul Rabanal, 2018. "Evolution of markets: a simulation with centralized, decentralized and posted offer formats," Journal of Evolutionary Economics, Springer, vol. 28(3), pages 667-689, August.
    14. repec:dau:papers:123456789/6913 is not listed on IDEAS
    15. Edoardo Gaffeo & Mauro Gallegati & Lucio Gobbi, 2022. "Endogenous clearinghouse formation in payment networks," Review of Evolutionary Political Economy, Springer, vol. 3(1), pages 109-136, April.
    16. Jonas Hedlund & Carlos Oyarzun, 2018. "Imitation in heterogeneous populations," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 65(4), pages 937-973, June.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    market institutions; evolution of trading platforms; learning; asymmetric rationality;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • C72 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Game Theory and Bargaining Theory - - - Noncooperative Games
    • D4 - Microeconomics - - Market Structure, Pricing, and Design
    • D83 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Search; Learning; Information and Knowledge; Communication; Belief; Unawareness
    • L1 - Industrial Organization - - Market Structure, Firm Strategy, and Market Performance

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