IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/bla/jemstr/v19y2010i1p1-23.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Middlemen and Oligopolistic Market Makers

Author

Listed:
  • Jiandong Ju
  • Scott C. Linn
  • Zhen Zhu

Abstract

This paper studies the endogenous structure of intermediation when heterogeneous intermediaries choose between becoming a middleman or a market maker, and the relation between the equilibrium market structure and price dispersion. We obtain three main results: First, middlemen and oligopolistic market makers can coexist in the market equilibrium. All market makers publicly post unique ask and bid prices. These prices serve as the high and low bounds, respectively, for the ask and bid prices of middlemen, when capacity cost is sufficiently large. Second, more efficient intermediaries choose to become market makers, whereas less efficient intermediaries choose to become middlemen. Third, if the fixed cost of capacity installation for market makers increases, the number of market makers declines, whereas the number of middlemen increases. As a result, both ask prices and bid prices become more dispersed.

Suggested Citation

  • Jiandong Ju & Scott C. Linn & Zhen Zhu, 2010. "Middlemen and Oligopolistic Market Makers," Journal of Economics & Management Strategy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 19(1), pages 1-23, March.
    • Handle: RePEc:bla:jemstr:v:19:y:2010:i:1:p:1-23
    DOI: 10.1111/j.1530-9134.2009.00243.x
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1530-9134.2009.00243.x
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1111/j.1530-9134.2009.00243.x?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. John Rust & George Hall, 2003. "Middlemen versus Market Makers: A Theory of Competitive Exchange," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 111(2), pages 353-403, April.
    2. Michael R. Baye & John Morgan, 2004. "Price Dispersion in the Lab and on the Internet: Theory and Evidence," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 35(3), pages 448-466, Autumn.
    3. Boccard, Nicolas & Wauthy, Xavier, 2004. "Bertrand competition and Cournot outcomes: a correction," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 84(2), pages 163-166, August.
    4. Partha Dasgupta & Eric Maskin, 1986. "The Existence of Equilibrium in Discontinuous Economic Games, I: Theory," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 53(1), pages 1-26.
    5. Partha Dasgupta & Eric Maskin, 1986. "The Existence of Equilibrium in Discontinuous Economic Games, II: Applications," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 53(1), pages 27-41.
    6. repec:bla:jindec:v:45:y:1997:i:4:p:405-27 is not listed on IDEAS
    7. Stahl, Dale O, II, 1988. "Bertrand Competition for Inputs and Walrasian Outcomes," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 78(1), pages 189-201, March.
    8. Yavas, Abdullah, 1992. "Marketmakers versus matchmakers," Journal of Financial Intermediation, Elsevier, vol. 2(1), pages 33-58, March.
    9. Michael R. Baye & John Morgan, 2001. "Information Gatekeepers on the Internet and the Competitiveness of Homogeneous Product Markets," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 91(3), pages 454-474, June.
    10. John Fingleton, 1997. "Competition Among Middlemen When Buyers and Sellers Can Trade Directly," Journal of Industrial Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 45(4), pages 405-427, December.
    11. David M. Kreps & Jose A. Scheinkman, 1983. "Quantity Precommitment and Bertrand Competition Yield Cournot Outcomes," Bell Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 14(2), pages 326-337, Autumn.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Chun Pang & He-ling Shi, 2010. "On the Emergence and Evolution of Mark-up Middlemen: An Inframarginal Model," Monash Economics Working Papers 24-10, Monash University, Department of Economics.
    2. Michael R. Baye & J. Rupert J. Gatti & Paul Kattuman & John Morgan, 2009. "Clicks, Discontinuities, and Firm Demand Online," Journal of Economics & Management Strategy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 18(4), pages 935-975, December.
    3. Fernando, Chitru S. & Herring, Richard J. & Subrahmanyam, Avanidhar, 2008. "Common liquidity shocks and market collapse: Lessons from the market for perps," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 32(8), pages 1625-1635, August.
    4. Maria Eugenia Sanin, 2016. "Tradable emission permits: beyond pollution abatement motives," Documents de recherche 16-01, Centre d'Études des Politiques Économiques (EPEE), Université d'Evry Val d'Essonne.
    5. Subhasish M. Chowdhury & Oindrila De & Stephan Martin, 2013. "Product Quality and Business Contracts: Intermediary Crude Oil Pricing in a Southwest-US Regional Market," Working Paper series, University of East Anglia, Centre for Competition Policy (CCP) 2013-06, Centre for Competition Policy, University of East Anglia, Norwich, UK..
    6. Murry, Donald & Zhu, Zhen, 2008. "Asymmetric price responses, market integration and market power: A study of the U.S. natural gas market," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 30(3), pages 748-765, May.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Simon Loertscher, 2008. "Market Making Oligopoly," Journal of Industrial Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 56(2), pages 263-289, June.
    2. Marie-Laure Cabon-Dhersin & Nicolas Drouhin, 2020. "A general model of price competition with soft capacity constraints," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 70(1), pages 95-120, July.
    3. Simon Loertscher, 2007. "Horizontally Differentiated Market Makers," Journal of Economics & Management Strategy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 16(4), pages 793-825, December.
    4. Galeotti, Andrea & Moraga-González, José Luis, 2009. "Platform intermediation in a market for differentiated products," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 53(4), pages 417-428, May.
    5. Pieter Gautier & Bo Hu & Makoto Watanabe, 2023. "Marketmaking Middlemen," RAND Journal of Economics, RAND Corporation, vol. 54(1), pages 83-103, March.
    6. Lepore, Jason J., 2012. "Cournot outcomes under Bertrand–Edgeworth competition with demand uncertainty," Journal of Mathematical Economics, Elsevier, vol. 48(3), pages 177-186.
    7. Lepore Jason J, 2009. "Consumer Rationing and the Cournot Outcome," The B.E. Journal of Theoretical Economics, De Gruyter, vol. 9(1), pages 1-46, September.
    8. Peralta, Susana & Wauthy, Xavier & van Ypersele, Tanguy, 2006. "Should countries control international profit shifting?," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 68(1), pages 24-37, January.
    9. Prabal Roy Chowdhury, 2004. "Bertrand-Edgeworth duopoly with linear costs: A tale of two paradoxes," Discussion Papers 04-13, Indian Statistical Institute, Delhi.
    10. Jacobs, Martin & Requate, Till, 2016. "Bertrand-Edgeworth markets with increasing marginal costs and voluntary trading: Experimental evidence," Economics Working Papers 2016-01, Christian-Albrechts-University of Kiel, Department of Economics.
    11. Martimort, David & Pouyet, Jérôme, 2020. "Downstream mergers in vertically related markets with capacity constraints," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 72(C).
    12. Mark Armstrong & John Vickers, 2018. "Patterns of Competition with Captive Customers," Economics Series Working Papers 864, University of Oxford, Department of Economics.
    13. Kováč, Eugen & Schmidt, Robert C., 2014. "Market share dynamics in a duopoly model with word-of-mouth communication," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 83(C), pages 178-206.
    14. Attila Tasnádi, 2016. "Endogenous timing of moves in Bertrand–Edgeworth triopolies," International Journal of Economic Theory, The International Society for Economic Theory, vol. 12(4), pages 317-334, December.
    15. Vettas, Nikolaos & Biglaiser, Gary, 2004. "Dynamic Price Competition with Capacity Constraints and Strategic Buyers," CEPR Discussion Papers 4315, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    16. Hunold, Matthias & Muthers, Johannes, 2019. "Spatial competition and price discrimination with capacity constraints," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 67(C).
    17. Bruce I. Carlin & Florian Ederer, 2019. "Search Fatigue," Review of Industrial Organization, Springer;The Industrial Organization Society, vol. 54(3), pages 485-508, May.
    18. Guillaume Roger, 2017. "Two-sided competition with vertical differentiation," Journal of Economics, Springer, vol. 120(3), pages 193-217, April.
    19. Victor Martínez-de-Albéniz & Kalyan Talluri, 2011. "Dynamic Price Competition with Fixed Capacities," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 57(6), pages 1078-1093, June.
    20. Antoniou, Fabio & Fiocco, Raffaele & Guo, Dongyu, 2017. "Asymmetric price adjustments: A supply side approach," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 50(C), pages 335-360.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:bla:jemstr:v:19:y:2010:i:1:p:1-23. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.kellogg.northwestern.edu/research/journals/JEMS/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.