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

Gianni De Fraja and József Sákovics

Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, 2012, vol. 84, issue 2, 618-632

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.

Keywords: Two-sided markets; Intermediation; Dynamic matching (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C78 D40 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2012
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (5)

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Related works:
Working Paper: Exclusive Nightclubs and Lonely Hearts Columns: Non-monotone Participation in Optional Intermediation (2010)
Working Paper: Exclusive Nightclubs and Lonely Hearts Columns: Non-monotone Participation in Optional Intermediation (2010)
Working Paper: Exclusive Nightclubs and Lonely Hearts Columns: Nonmonotone Participation in Optional Intermediation (2010)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:jeborg:v:84:y:2012:i:2:p:618-632

DOI: 10.1016/j.jebo.2012.09.009

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