IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/zbw/fubsbe/202111.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Fairness and competition in a bilateral matching market

Author

Listed:
  • Bester, Helmut

Abstract

This paper analyzes fairness and bargaining in a dynamic bilateral matching market. Traders from both sides of the market are pairwise matched to share the gains from trade. The bargaining outcome depends on the traders' fairness attitudes. In equilibrium fairness matters because of market frictions. But, when these frictions become negligible, the equilibrium approaches theWalrasian competitive equilibrium, independently of the traders' inequity aversion. Fairness may yield a Pareto improvement; but also the contrary is possible. Overall, the market implications of fairness are very different from its effects in isolated bilateral bargaining.

Suggested Citation

  • Bester, Helmut, 2021. "Fairness and competition in a bilateral matching market," Discussion Papers 2021/11, Free University Berlin, School of Business & Economics.
    • Handle: RePEc:zbw:fubsbe:202111
    DOI: 10.17169/refubium-30998
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.econstor.eu/bitstream/10419/235647/1/1762995581.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.17169/refubium-30998?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
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Raluca Dragusanu & Daniele Giovannucci & Nathan Nunn, 2014. "The Economics of Fair Trade," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 28(3), pages 217-236, Summer.
    2. Dragusanu, Raluca & Giovannucci, Daniele & Nunn, Nathan, 2014. "The Economics of Fair Trade," Scholarly Articles 33077828, Harvard University Department of Economics.
    3. Lauermann, Stephan & Nöldeke, Georg, 2015. "Existence of steady-state equilibria in matching models with search frictions," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 131(C), pages 1-4.
    4. Ernst Fehr & Klaus M. Schmidt, 1999. "A Theory of Fairness, Competition, and Cooperation," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 114(3), pages 817-868.
    5. Güth, Werner & Kocher, Martin G., 2014. "More than thirty years of ultimatum bargaining experiments: Motives, variations, and a survey of the recent literature," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 108(C), pages 396-409.
    6. Gianni De Fraja & Jozsef Sakovics, 2001. "Walras Retrouve: Decentralized Trading Mechanisms and the Competitive Price," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 109(4), pages 842-863, August.
    7. Bester, Helmut, 1994. "Price commitment in search markets," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 25(1), pages 109-120, September.
    8. Dale T. Mortensen & Randall Wright, 2002. "Competitive Pricing and Efficiency in Search Equilibrium," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 43(1), pages 1-20, February.
    9. Klaus M. Schmidt, 2011. "Social Preferences and Competition," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 43, pages 207-231, August.
    10. James Andreoni & Lise Vesterlund, 2001. "Which is the Fair Sex? Gender Differences in Altruism," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 116(1), pages 293-312.
    11. David Card & Ana Rute Cardoso & Patrick Kline, 2016. "Bargaining, Sorting, and the Gender Wage Gap: Quantifying the Impact of Firms on the Relative Pay of Women," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 131(2), pages 633-686.
    12. Stephan Lauermann, 2013. "Dynamic Matching and Bargaining Games: A General Approach," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 103(2), pages 663-689, April.
    13. Helmut Bester, 1988. "Bargaining, Search Costs and Equilibrium Price Distributions," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 55(2), pages 201-214.
    14. Mas-Colell, Andreu & Whinston, Michael D. & Green, Jerry R., 1995. "Microeconomic Theory," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780195102680.
    15. Moreno, Diego & Wooders, John, 2002. "Prices, Delay, and the Dynamics of Trade," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 104(2), pages 304-339, June.
    16. Klaus M. Schmidt, 2011. "Social Preferences and Competition," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 43(s1), pages 207-231, August.
    17. Bester, Helmut, 1993. "Bargaining versus Price Competition in Markets with Quality Uncertainty," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 83(1), pages 278-288, March.
    18. Rubinstein, Ariel & Wolinsky, Asher, 1985. "Equilibrium in a Market with Sequential Bargaining," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 53(5), pages 1133-1150, September.
    19. Fehr, Ernst & Schmidt, Klaus M., 2006. "The Economics of Fairness, Reciprocity and Altruism - Experimental Evidence and New Theories," Handbook on the Economics of Giving, Reciprocity and Altruism, in: S. Kolm & Jean Mercier Ythier (ed.), Handbook of the Economics of Giving, Altruism and Reciprocity, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 8, pages 615-691, Elsevier.
    20. Martin Dufwenberg & Paul Heidhues & Georg Kirchsteiger & Frank Riedel & Joel Sobel, 2011. "Other-Regarding Preferences in General Equilibrium," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 78(2), pages 613-639.
    21. Gale, Douglas M, 1986. "Bargaining and Competition Part I: Characterization," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 54(4), pages 785-806, July.
    22. Gale, Douglas, 1987. "Limit theorems for markets with sequential bargaining," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 43(1), pages 20-54, October.
    23. Diamond, Peter A., 1971. "A model of price adjustment," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 3(2), pages 156-168, June.
    24. Ariel Rubinstein & Asher Wolinsky, 1990. "Decentralized Trading, Strategic Behaviour and the Walrasian Outcome," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 57(1), pages 63-78.
    25. Gale, Douglas M, 1986. "Bargaining and Competition Part II: Existence," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 54(4), pages 807-818, July.
    26. Mas-Colell, Andreu (ed.), 1982. "Noncooperative Approaches to the Theory of Perfect Competition," Elsevier Monographs, Elsevier, edition 1, number 9780124767508.
    27. Rabin, Matthew, 1993. "Incorporating Fairness into Game Theory and Economics," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 83(5), pages 1281-1302, December.
    28. Guth, Werner & Schmittberger, Rolf & Schwarze, Bernd, 1982. "An experimental analysis of ultimatum bargaining," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 3(4), pages 367-388, December.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. Stephan Lauermann, 2013. "Dynamic Matching and Bargaining Games: A General Approach," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 103(2), pages 663-689, April.
    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. 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.
    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. 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.
    6. Raskovich, Alexander, 2007. "Ordered bargaining," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 25(5), pages 1126-1143, October.
    7. Alexander Raskovich, 2006. "Ordered Bargaining," EAG Discussions Papers 200610, Department of Justice, Antitrust Division.
    8. Binmore, Ken & Osborne, Martin J. & Rubinstein, Ariel, 1992. "Noncooperative models of bargaining," Handbook of Game Theory with Economic Applications, in: R.J. Aumann & S. Hart (ed.), Handbook of Game Theory with Economic Applications, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 7, pages 179-225, Elsevier.
    9. 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.
    10. Mark Satterthwaite & Artyom Shneyerov, 2003. "Convergence of a Dynamic Matching and Bargaining Market with Two-sided Incomplete Information to Perfect Competition," Discussion Papers 1384, Northwestern University, Center for Mathematical Studies in Economics and Management Science.
    11. Jean Guillaume Forand & Vikram Maheshri, 2012. "(De)Regulation and Market Thickness," Working Papers 1202, University of Waterloo, Department of Economics, revised Oct 2012.
    12. Bental, Benjamin & Kragl, Jenny, 2021. "Inequality and incentives with societal other-regarding preferences," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 188(C), pages 1298-1324.
    13. Jean Guillaume Forand & Vikram Maheshri, 2012. "(De)Regulation and Market Thickness," Working Papers 1202, University of Waterloo, Department of Economics, revised Oct 2012.
    14. 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.
    15. Nicholas, Aaron, 2022. "Invisible Hand, invisible morals: An experiment," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 197(C), pages 395-418.
    16. Cho, In-Koo & Matsui, Akihiko, 2017. "Foundation of competitive equilibrium with non-transferable utility," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 170(C), pages 227-265.
    17. Manea, Mihai, 2017. "Bargaining in dynamic markets," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 104(C), pages 59-77.
    18. Penta, Antonio, 2011. "Multilateral bargaining and Walrasian equilibrium," Journal of Mathematical Economics, Elsevier, vol. 47(4-5), pages 417-424.
    19. Thorsten Chmura & Christoph Engel & Markus Englerth, 2013. "Selfishness As a Potential Cause of Crime. A Prison Experiment," Discussion Paper Series of the Max Planck Institute for Research on Collective Goods 2013_05, Max Planck Institute for Research on Collective Goods.
    20. Daughety, Andrew F. & Reinganum, Jennifer F., 1994. "Settlement negotiations with two-sided asymmetric information: Model duality, information distribution, and efficiency," International Review of Law and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 14(3), pages 283-298, September.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Fairness; inequity aversion; bargaining; ultimatum game; matching market; search costs; competitive equilibrium;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • C78 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Game Theory and Bargaining Theory - - - Bargaining Theory; Matching Theory
    • D5 - Microeconomics - - General Equilibrium and Disequilibrium
    • D6 - Microeconomics - - Welfare Economics
    • D83 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Search; Learning; Information and Knowledge; Communication; Belief; Unawareness
    • D9 - Microeconomics - - Micro-Based Behavioral Economics

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:zbw:fubsbe:202111. 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: ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/fwfubde.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.