IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/red/sed008/419.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

When Less Information is Good for Efficiency: Private Information in Bilateral Trade and in Markets

Author

Listed:
  • Stephan Lauermann

Abstract

We consider a simple bilateral trading game between a seller and a buyer who have private valuations for an indivisible good. The seller makes a price offer which the buyer can either accept or reject. If the seller can observe the valuation of the buyer (if information is symmetric), then the trading outcome is trivially efficient. If the seller can not observe the valuation (if information is asymmetric), then the outcome must be inefficient, as is known from the Myerson-Satterthwaite Impossibility Theorem. We embed this bilateral trading game between a single buyer and a single seller into a matching market with a continuum of traders. We show that in this market the relation between information and efficiency is reversed. In particular, if information is symmetric, trading in the market is, in fact, inefficient.

Suggested Citation

  • Stephan Lauermann, 2008. "When Less Information is Good for Efficiency: Private Information in Bilateral Trade and in Markets," 2008 Meeting Papers 419, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    • Handle: RePEc:red:sed008:419
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://red-files-public.s3.amazonaws.com/meetpapers/2008/paper_419.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Mark Satterthwaite & Artyom Shneyerov, 2007. "Dynamic Matching, Two-Sided Incomplete Information, and Participation Costs: Existence and Convergence to Perfect Competition," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 75(1), pages 155-200, January.
    2. Shneyerov, Artyom & Wong, Adam Chi Leung, 2010. "Bilateral matching and bargaining with private information," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 68(2), pages 748-762, March.
    3. Leonardo Felli & Kevin Roberts, 2016. "Does Competition Solve the Hold-up Problem?," Economica, London School of Economics and Political Science, vol. 83(329), pages 172-200, January.
    4. Serrano, Roberto, 2002. "Decentralized information and the Walrasian outcome: a pairwise meetings market with private values," Journal of Mathematical Economics, Elsevier, vol. 38(1-2), pages 65-89, September.
    5. Alp E. Atakan, 2006. "Competitive Equilibria in Decentralized Matching with Incomplete Information," Discussion Papers 1437, Northwestern University, Center for Mathematical Studies in Economics and Management Science.
    6. Gale, Douglas, 1987. "Limit theorems for markets with sequential bargaining," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 43(1), pages 20-54, October.
    7. Diamond, Peter A., 1971. "A model of price adjustment," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 3(2), pages 156-168, June.
    8. Roman Inderst, 2001. "Screening in a Matching Market," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 68(4), pages 849-868.
    9. Stephan Lauermann, 2008. "Price Setting in a Decentralized Market and the Competitive Outcome," Discussion Paper Series of the Max Planck Institute for Research on Collective Goods 2008_06, Max Planck Institute for Research on Collective Goods.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Stephan Lauermann, 2013. "Dynamic Matching and Bargaining Games: A General Approach," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 103(2), pages 663-689, April.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Lauermann, Stephan, 2012. "Asymmetric information in bilateral trade and in markets: An inversion result," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 147(5), pages 1969-1997.
    2. Shneyerov, Artyom & Wong, Adam Chi Leung, 2010. "Bilateral matching and bargaining with private information," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 68(2), pages 748-762, March.
    3. Stephan Lauermann, 2013. "Dynamic Matching and Bargaining Games: A General Approach," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 103(2), pages 663-689, April.
    4. Shneyerov, Artyom & Wong, Adam Chi Leung, 2010. "The rate of convergence to perfect competition of matching and bargaining mechanisms," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 145(3), pages 1164-1187, May.
    5. Michael Choi & Guillaume Rocheteau, 2024. "Information acquisition and price discrimination in dynamic, decentralized markets," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 53, pages 1-46, July.
    6. Satterthwaite, Mark & Shneyerov, Artyom, 2008. "Convergence to perfect competition of a dynamic matching and bargaining market with two-sided incomplete information and exogenous exit rate," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 63(2), pages 435-467, July.
    7. Bester, Helmut, 2013. "Investments and the holdup problem in a matching market," Journal of Mathematical Economics, Elsevier, vol. 49(4), pages 302-311.
    8. Shneyerov, Artyom & Wong, Adam C.L., 2020. "Price discovery in a matching and bargaining market with aggregate uncertainty," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 124(C), pages 183-206.
    9. Niedermayer, Andras & Shneyerov, Artyom, 2013. "For-Profit Search Platforms," Discussion Paper Series of SFB/TR 15 Governance and the Efficiency of Economic Systems 436, Free University of Berlin, Humboldt University of Berlin, University of Bonn, University of Mannheim, University of Munich.
    10. Dipjyoti Majumdar & Artyom Shneyerov & Huan Xie, 2016. "An optimistic search equilibrium," Review of Economic Design, Springer;Society for Economic Design, vol. 20(2), pages 89-114, June.
    11. Shneyerov, Art & Wong, Adam Chi Leung, 2007. "The Rate of Convergence to Perfect Competition of a Simple Matching and Bargaining Mechanism," Microeconomics.ca working papers shneyerov-07-05-01-03-43-, Vancouver School of Economics, revised 01 May 2007.
    12. Majumdar, Dipjyoti & Shneyerov, Art & Xie, Huan, 2010. "How Optimism Leads to Price Discovery and Efficiency in a Dynamic Matching Market," Microeconomics.ca working papers artyom_shneyerov-2010-32, Vancouver School of Economics, revised 26 Oct 2010.
    13. Stephan Lauermann, 2008. "Price Setting in a Decentralized Market and the Competitive Outcome," Discussion Paper Series of the Max Planck Institute for Research on Collective Goods 2008_06, Max Planck Institute for Research on Collective Goods.
    14. Yujing Xu, 2022. "Unobservable investments, trade efficiency and search frictions," Canadian Journal of Economics/Revue canadienne d'économique, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 55(2), pages 764-799, May.
    15. Alp E. Atakan, 2006. "Competitive Equilibria in Decentralized Matching with Incomplete Information," Discussion Papers 1437, Northwestern University, Center for Mathematical Studies in Economics and Management Science.
    16. Andras Niedermayer & Artyom Shneyerov, 2014. "For‐Profit Search Platforms," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 55(3), pages 765-789, August.
    17. Shneyerov, Artyom & Wong, Adam Chi Leung, 2011. "The role of private information in dynamic matching and bargaining: Can it be good for efficiency?," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 112(1), pages 128-131, July.
    18. Shneyerov, Artyom, 2014. "A Walrasian Rubinstein and Wolinsky model," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 124(2), pages 314-317.
    19. Arnold Polanski & Fernando Vega-Redondo, 2013. "Markets, Bargaining, and Networks with Heterogeneous Agents," University of East Anglia Applied and Financial Economics Working Paper Series 038, School of Economics, University of East Anglia, Norwich, UK..
    20. Yujing Xu, 2022. "Unobservable investments, trade efficiency and search frictions," Post-Print hal-03848827, HAL.

    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:red:sed008:419. 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.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with 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: Christian Zimmermann (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/sedddea.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.