Consumer‐Minded Informational Intermediary and Welfare Losses
研究了第三方信息中介的福利影响，发现当中介更关注消费者时，总福利可能帕累托下降，且这种消费者导向会内生出现。
ABSTRACT This article examines the welfare implications of third‐party informational intermediation. A seller sets the price of a product that is sold through an intermediary, who discloses information about the product to consumers. In a model where the intermediary is consumer‐minded—has a payoff that depends on both the seller's revenue and the consumer surplus, we show that total welfare may decrease in the Pareto sense, as the intermediary's consumer‐mindedness increases . Furthermore, we show that consumer‐mindedness emerges endogenously when a revenue‐maximizing intermediary is forward‐looking and the consumer base is increasing in past consumer surplus.