Competing Matchmaking
研究匹配平台如何通过定价筛选异质参与者进入竞争性市场,并比较双头垄断与垄断在价格、市场结构和匹配效率上的差异。发现价格竞争导致高质量市场不够排他,总匹配价值可能低于垄断。
We study how matchmakers use prices to sort heterogeneous participants into competing matching markets and how equilibrium outcomes compare with monopoly in terms of prices, matching market structure, and sorting efficiency under the assumption of complementarity in the match value function. The role of prices to facilitate sorting is compromised by the need to survive price competition. We show that price competition leads to a high-quality market that is insufficiently exclusive. As a result, the duopolistic outcome can be less efficient in sorting than the monopoly outcome in terms of total match value in spite of servicing more participants.