Simultaneous Search and Adverse Selection
研究了在逆向选择市场中，减少搜寻摩擦（如同时联系多个交易伙伴）如何影响市场均衡和福利，发现过度便利可能降低福利，为评估技术革新对市场的影响提供依据。
Abstract We study the effect of diminishing search frictions in markets with adverse selection by presenting a model in which agents with private information can simultaneously contact multiple trading partners. We highlight a new trade-off: facilitating contacts reduces coordination frictions but also the ability to screen agents’ types. We find that, when agents can contact sufficiently many trading partners, fully separating equilibria obtain only if adverse selection is sufficiently severe. When this condition fails, equilibria feature partial pooling and multiple equilibria co-exist. We show that facilitating contacts can lead to a reduction in welfare. In the limit, as the number of contacts becomes large, some of the equilibria converge to the competitive outcomes of Akerlof, including Pareto-dominated ones; other pooling equilibria continue to feature frictional trade in the limit, where entry is inefficiently high. Our findings provide a basis to assess the effects of recent technological innovations that have made meetings easier.