Intermediation and Competition in Search Markets: An Empirical Case Study
研究了纽约市商业垃圾市场中，中介（垃圾经纪人）如何通过降低高搜索成本买家的费用和影响搜索外部性来改善买家福利，并量化了这些效应的大小。
Intermediaries in decentralized markets can affect buyer welfare both directly, by reducing expenses for buyers with high search cost, and indirectly, through a search externality that affects the prices paid by buyers who do not use intermediaries. I investigate the magnitude of these effects in New York City’s trade-waste market, where buyers can search either by themselves or through a waste broker. Combining elements from the empirical search and procurement auction literatures, I construct and estimate a model for a decentralized market. Results from the model show that intermediaries improve welfare and benefit buyers in both the broker and the search markets.