Competition through Commissions and Kickbacks
研究了零售金融和健康服务市场中，产品提供者通过隐藏回扣或公开佣金影响中介建议的竞争行为，并分析了强制披露和佣金上限等政策的意外福利后果。
In markets for retail financial products and health services, consumers often rely on the advice of intermediaries to decide which specialized offering best fits their needs. Product providers, in turn, compete to influence the intermediaries' advice through hidden kickbacks or disclosed commissions. Motivated by the controversial role of these widespread practices, we formulate a model to analyze competition through commissions from a positive and normative standpoint. The model highlights the role of commissions in making the advisor responsive to supply-side incentives. We characterize situations when commonly adopted policies such as mandatory disclosure and caps on commissions have unintended welfare consequences.