Automated switching services

Luke Garrod, Ruochen Li and Christopher Wilson

MPRA Paper from University Library of Munich, Germany

Abstract: Automated switching services have recently emerged as online intermediaries that use algorithms to facilitate consumer switching. Unlike price comparison websites, these services i) act on behalf of consumers by actively switching them to the cheapest deals, ii) typically charge consumers directly, rather than charging suppliers commission, and iii) often survey across the entire market. We offer the first theoretical analysis of such services. In an oligopoly model with imperfect price information, we characterize an equilibrium with an auto-switching service, and analyze its impact on market outcomes and welfare.

Keywords: Consumer Switching; Consumer Search; Price Information; Intermediary; Automated; Competition. (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D43 D83 L13 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023-09-01
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-com, nep-ind, nep-mic and nep-reg
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Downloads: (external link)
https://mpra.ub.uni-muenchen.de/118492/3/auto-switching_working%20paper.pdf original version (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: Automated switching services (2023)
Working Paper: Automated switching services (2023)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:pra:mprapa:118492

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in MPRA Paper from University Library of Munich, Germany Ludwigstraße 33, D-80539 Munich, Germany. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Joachim Winter ().