Exclusive nightclubs and lonely hearts columns: Non-monotone participation in optional intermediation

B-Tier
Journal: Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization
Year: 2012
Volume: 84
Issue: 2
Pages: 618-632

Authors (2)

Score contribution per author:

1.005 = (α=2.01 / 2 authors) × 1.0x B-tier

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

Abstract

In many decentralised markets, the traders who benefit most from an exchange do not employ intermediaries even though they could easily afford them. At the same time, employing intermediaries is not worthwhile for traders who benefit little from trade. Together, these decisions amount to non-monotone participation choices in intermediation: only traders of middle “type” employ intermediaries, while the rest, the high and the low types, prefer to search for a trading partner directly. We provide a theoretical foundation for this, hitherto unexplained, phenomenon. We build a dynamic matching model, where a trader's equilibrium bargaining share is a convex increasing function of her type. We also show that this is indeed a necessary condition for the existence of non-monotone equilibria.

Technical Details

RePEc Handle
repec:eee:jeborg:v:84:y:2012:i:2:p:618-632
Journal Field
Theory
Author Count
2
Added to Database
2026-01-25