Intermediaries and Product Quality in Used Car Markets

Gary Biglaiser (), Fei Li (), Charles Murry and Yiyi Zhou ()
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Gary Biglaiser: University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

No 969, Boston College Working Papers in Economics from Boston College Department of Economics

Abstract: We examine used car dealers’ roles as intermediaries. We present empirical evidence supporting that cars sold by dealers have higher quality: (1) dealer transaction prices are higher than private market prices and this dealer premium increases in the age of the car as a ratio and is hump-shaped in dollar value, and (2) used cars purchased from dealers are less likely to be resold immediately. We formalize a model to show that these empirical facts can be rationalized either when dealers serve to alleviate information asymmetry between sellers and buyers or when dealers facilitate assortative matching between heterogenous-quality cars and heterogeneous consumers. Lastly, based on predictions of the model, we use the data to distinguish these two theories and find evidence for both, but the preponderance of the evidence supports the asymmetric information theory.

Keywords: Adverse Selection; Sorting; Search Frictions; Car Dealer; Used Car; Intermediary; Middlemen (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D82 D83 L15 L62 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2018-12-07
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-ind and nep-tre
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

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Related works:
Journal Article: Intermediaries and product quality in used car markets (2020)
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