Collusion in Brokered Markets
研究了美国住宅房地产经纪市场高佣金之谜，通过博弈模型证明即使市场分散且进入容易，经纪人也可能通过互惠条件维持高于竞争水平的价格。
ABSTRACT High commissions in the U.S. residential real estate agency market pose a puzzle for economic theory because brokerage is not a concentrated industry. We model brokered markets as a game in which agents post prices for customers and then choose which other agents to work with. We show that there exists an equilibrium in which each agent conditions working with other agents on those agents' posted prices. Prices can therefore be meaningfully higher than the competitive level (for a fixed discount factor), regardless of the number of agents. Thus, brokered markets can remain uncompetitive even with low concentration and easy entry.