The Social Costs of Side Trading

A-Tier
Journal: Economic Journal
Year: 2020
Volume: 130
Issue: 630
Pages: 1608-1622

Score contribution per author:

1.341 = (α=2.01 / 3 authors) × 2.0x A-tier

α: calibrated so average coauthorship-adjusted count equals average raw count

Abstract

We study resource allocation under private information when the planner cannot prevent bilateral side trading between consumers and firms. Adverse selection and side trading severely restrict feasible trades: each marginal quantity must be fairly priced given the consumer types who purchase it. The resulting social costs are twofold. First, second-best efficiency and robustness to side trading are in general irreconcilable requirements. Second, there actually exists only one budget-feasible allocation robust to side trading, which deprives the planner from any capacity to redistribute resources between different types of consumers. We discuss the relevance of our results for insurance and financial markets.

Technical Details

RePEc Handle
repec:oup:econjl:v:130:y:2020:i:630:p:1608-1622.
Journal Field
General
Author Count
3
Added to Database
2026-01-24