IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/bla/randje/v57y2026i2p285-299.html

Buyer‐Optimal Platform Design

Author

Listed:
  • Daniele Condorelli
  • Balazs Szentes

Abstract

A platform matches a unit mass of sellers, each owning a single product of heterogeneous quality, to a unit mass of buyers with differing valuations for unit‐quality. After matching, sellers make take‐it‐or‐leave‐it price‐offers to buyers. Initially, valuations of buyers are only known to them and the platform, but sellers make inferences from the matching algorithm. The efficient matching is positive assortative, but buyer‐optimal matchings are stochastically negative assortative when there are few low‐value buyers (i.e., compared to lower‐quality sellers, high‐quality ones are matched to buyers with lower expected valuation). Although everyone trades, generating rents for the side lacking bargaining power results in inefficient matching.

Suggested Citation

  • Daniele Condorelli & Balazs Szentes, 2026. "Buyer‐Optimal Platform Design," RAND Journal of Economics, RAND Corporation, vol. 57(2), pages 285-299, June.
    • Handle: RePEc:bla:randje:v:57:y:2026:i:2:p:285-299
    DOI: 10.1111/1756-2171.70014
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1111/1756-2171.70014
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1111/1756-2171.70014?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:bla:randje:v:57:y:2026:i:2:p:285-299. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/randdus.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.