Intermediated Search
研究了当买家无法直接观察产品特性时，市场中介如何通过管理产品多样性来降低搜索不确定性、改善交易质量，并分析了产品数量如何影响竞争与定价。
If buyers cannot observe product characteristics, they search available sellers to find better matches. In this situation, market go‐betweens who ‘manage’ a variety of products emerge, offering consumers a variety of trading opportunities which reduce the uncertainty of search and improve the quality of consumer–producer trades. The distribution of the benefits from this intermediation depend critically on the number of products available. When variety is low, increases in capacity heighten competition, thereby lowering prices. On the other hand, with many products on offer, retail firms act monopolistically. In this case, increased capacity raises prices.