IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/tor/tecipa/tecipa-426.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Search Intermediaries

Author

Listed:
  • Xianwen Shi
  • Aloysius Siow

Abstract

In frictional matching markets with heterogeneous buyers and sellers, sellers incur discrete showing costs to show goods to buyers who incur discrete inspection costs to assess the suitability of the goods on offer. This paper studies how brokers can help reduce these costs by managing the level and mix of goods in their inventory. We find that intermediaries emerge and improve social welfare when there is sufficient heterogeneity in the types of goods and preferences. Our analysis highlights how learning and inventory management enable search intermediaries to internalize information externalities generated in unintermediated private search.

Suggested Citation

  • Xianwen Shi & Aloysius Siow, 2011. "Search Intermediaries," Working Papers tecipa-426, University of Toronto, Department of Economics.
    • Handle: RePEc:tor:tecipa:tecipa-426
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.economics.utoronto.ca/public/workingPapers/tecipa-426.pdf
    File Function: Main Text
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Robert Shimer & Lones Smith, 2000. "Assortative Matching and Search," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 68(2), pages 343-370, March.
    2. Wheaton, William C, 1990. "Vacancy, Search, and Prices in a Housing Market Matching Model," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 98(6), pages 1270-1292, December.
    3. Bloch, Francis & Ryder, Harl, 2000. "Two-Sided Search, Marriages, and Matchmakers," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 41(1), pages 93-115, February.
    4. Gabriele Camera & Alain Delacroix, 2004. "Trade Mechanism Selection in Markets with Frictions," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 7(4), pages 851-868, October.
    5. Spulber,Daniel F., 2009. "The Theory of the Firm," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521736602.
    6. Alp E. Atakan, 2006. "Assortative Matching with Explicit Search Costs," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 74(3), pages 667-680, May.
    7. Alok Johri & John Leach, 2002. "Middlemen and the Allocation of Heterogeneous Goods," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 43(2), pages 347-362, May.
    8. Yavas, Abdullah, 1992. "Marketmakers versus matchmakers," Journal of Financial Intermediation, Elsevier, vol. 2(1), pages 33-58, March.
    9. Sushil Bikhchandani & David Hirshleifer & Ivo Welch, 1998. "Learning from the Behavior of Others: Conformity, Fads, and Informational Cascades," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 12(3), pages 151-170, Summer.
    10. Asher Wolinsky, 1983. "Retail Trade Concentration Due to Consumers' Imperfect Information," Bell Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 14(1), pages 275-282, Spring.
    11. Ken Burdett & Melvyn G. Coles, 1997. "Marriage and Class," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 112(1), pages 141-168.
    12. James Albrecht & Axel Anderson & Eric Smith & Susan Vroman, 2007. "Opportunistic Matching In The Housing Market," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 48(2), pages 641-664, May.
    13. Edward A. Baryla & Leonard V. Zumpano, 1995. "Buyer Search Duration in the Residential Real Estate Market: The Role of the Real Estate Agent," Journal of Real Estate Research, American Real Estate Society, vol. 10(1), pages 1-14.
    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. Bar-Isaac, Heski & Gavazza, Alessandro, 2015. "Brokers’ contractual arrangements in the Manhattan residential rental market," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 86(C), pages 73-82.
    2. Dasgupta, Kunal & Mondria, Jordi, 2018. "Quality uncertainty and intermediation in international trade," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 104(C), pages 68-91.

    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. Xianwen Shi & Aloysius Siow, 2014. "Information externalities and intermediaries in frictional search markets," Canadian Journal of Economics, Canadian Economics Association, vol. 47(4), pages 1131-1152, November.
    2. Leung, Charles Ka Yui & Tse, Chung-Yi, 2017. "Flipping in the housing market," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 76(C), pages 232-263.
    3. Twisha Chatterjee, 2018. "A model of search and matching with PES intermediation," Eurasian Economic Review, Springer;Eurasia Business and Economics Society, vol. 8(1), pages 1-36, April.
    4. Coles, Melvyn & Francesconi, Marco, 2007. "On the Emergence of Toyboys: Equilibrium Matching with Ageing and Uncertain Careers," IZA Discussion Papers 2612, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    5. Vinay Ramani, 2016. "Existence of Multiple Matchmakers in a Two-sided Matching Market," Studies in Microeconomics, , vol. 4(1), pages 46-69, June.
    6. Herrenbrueck, Lucas & Xia, Xiaoyu & Eastwick, Paul & Hui, Chin Ming, 2018. "Smart-dating in speed-dating: How a simple Search model can explain matching decisions," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 106(C), pages 54-76.
    7. Guillaume Rocheteau & Pierre‐Olivier Weill, 2011. "Liquidity in Frictional Asset Markets," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 43(s2), pages 261-282, October.
    8. Xu, Yujing & Yang, Huanxing, 2019. "Targeted search with horizontal differentiation in the marriage market," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 164(C), pages 31-62.
    9. Hofmann, Dirk & Qari, Salmai, 2011. "The law of attraction bilateral search and horizontal heterogeneity," SFB 649 Discussion Papers 2011-017, Humboldt University Berlin, Collaborative Research Center 649: Economic Risk.
    10. E. M. Parilina & A. Tampieri, 2013. "Marriage Formation with Assortative Meeting as a Two-Sided Optimal Stopping Problem," Working Papers wp886, Dipartimento Scienze Economiche, Universita' di Bologna.
    11. Adachi, Hiroyuki, 2003. "A search model of two-sided matching under nontransferable utility," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 113(2), pages 182-198, December.
    12. repec:hum:wpaper:sfb649dp2013-044 is not listed on IDEAS
    13. Alison Booth & Melvyn Coles, 2010. "Education, Matching, and the Allocative Value of Romance," Journal of the European Economic Association, MIT Press, vol. 8(4), pages 744-775, June.
    14. Sperisen, Benjamin & Wiseman, Thomas, 2020. "Too good to fire: Non-assortative matching to play a dynamic game," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 124(C), pages 491-511.
    15. Hector Chade & Gustavo Ventura, 2002. "Taxes and Marriage: A Two-Sided Search Analysis," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 43(3), pages 955-986, August.
    16. Daisy J. Huang & Charles Ka Yui Leung & Chung-Yi Tse, 2018. "What Accounts for the Differences in Rent-Price Ratio and Turnover Rate? A Search-and-Matching Approach," The Journal of Real Estate Finance and Economics, Springer, vol. 57(3), pages 431-475, October.
    17. Poeschel, Friedrich, 2012. "Assortative matching through signals," IAB-Discussion Paper 201215, Institut für Arbeitsmarkt- und Berufsforschung (IAB), Nürnberg [Institute for Employment Research, Nuremberg, Germany].
    18. Stephan Lauermann & Georg Nöldeke & Thomas Tröger, 2020. "The Balance Condition in Search‐and‐Matching Models," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 88(2), pages 595-618, March.
    19. Lauermann, Stephan & Nöldeke, Georg, 2014. "Stable marriages and search frictions," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 151(C), pages 163-195.
    20. repec:ebl:ecbull:v:3:y:2003:i:17:p:1-6 is not listed on IDEAS
    21. Chade, Hector, 2006. "Matching with noise and the acceptance curse," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 129(1), pages 81-113, July.
    22. Nicolas L. Jacquet & Serene Tan, 2007. "On the Segmentation of Markets," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 115(4), pages 639-664, August.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Search; Intermediation; Brokers; Housing Markets;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D83 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Search; Learning; Information and Knowledge; Communication; Belief; Unawareness
    • D82 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Asymmetric and Private Information; Mechanism Design

    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:tor:tecipa:tecipa-426. 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: RePEc Maintainer (email available below). General contact details of provider: .

    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.