IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/red/sed019/322.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Sequentially Mixed Search and Equilibrium Price Dispersion

Author

Listed:
  • Shouyong Shi

    (Pennsylvania State University)

Abstract

Many markets feature sequentially mixed search (SMS), which has directed search in the first stage followed by noisy matching with multiple offers in the second stage. I construct a simple model of SMS, establish existence of a unique equilibrium, analyze how the two stages of SMS interact to affect quantities and price dispersion, and conduct comparative statics with respect to the meeting efficiency and the economic condition. By extending the model to endogenize search effort, I show that the equilibrium is not constrained socially efficient. Policies are introduced to restore efficiency and to manage aggregate demand and supply.

Suggested Citation

  • Shouyong Shi, 2019. "Sequentially Mixed Search and Equilibrium Price Dispersion," 2019 Meeting Papers 322, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    • Handle: RePEc:red:sed019:322
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://red-files-public.s3.amazonaws.com/meetpapers/2019/paper_322.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Galenianos, Manolis & Kircher, Philipp, 2009. "Directed search with multiple job applications," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 144(2), pages 445-471, March.
    2. Shi, Shouyong, 2016. "Customer relationship and sales," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 166(C), pages 483-516.
    3. Shouyong Shi & Alain Delacroix, 2018. "Should Buyers or Sellers Trade in a Frictional Market?," 2018 Meeting Papers 254, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    4. Shouyong Shi, 2009. "Directed Search for Equilibrium Wage-Tenure Contracts," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 77(2), pages 561-584, March.
    5. Glenn Ellison & Sara Fisher Ellison, 2005. "Lessons About Markets from the Internet," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 19(2), pages 139-158, Spring.
    6. Menzio, Guido & Shi, Shouyong, 2010. "Block recursive equilibria for stochastic models of search on the job," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 145(4), pages 1453-1494, July.
    7. Delacroix, Alain & Shi, Shouyong, 2013. "Pricing and signaling with frictions," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 148(4), pages 1301-1332.
    8. Moen, Espen R, 1997. "Competitive Search Equilibrium," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 105(2), pages 385-411, April.
    9. Steven Salop & Joseph Stiglitz, 1977. "Bargains and Ripoffs: A Model of Monopolistically Competitive Price Dispersion," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 44(3), pages 493-510.
    10. Zachary Bethune & Michael Choi & Randall Wright, 2020. "Frictional Goods Markets: Theory and Applications," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 87(2), pages 691-720.
    11. Diamond, Peter A, 1982. "Aggregate Demand Management in Search Equilibrium," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 90(5), pages 881-894, October.
    12. Shouyong Shi & Alain Delacroix, 2018. "Should Buyers or Sellers Organize Trade in a Frictional Market?," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 133(4), pages 2171-2214.
    13. Michael R. Baye & John Morgan & Patrick Scholten, 2004. "Price Dispersion In The Small And In The Large: Evidence From An Internet Price Comparison Site," Journal of Industrial Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 52(4), pages 463-496, December.
    14. Kyungmin Kim & Philipp Kircher, 2015. "Efficient Competition Through Cheap Talk: The Case of Competing Auctions," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 83(5), pages 1849-1875, September.
    15. Shilony, Yuval, 1977. "Mixed pricing in oligopoly," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 14(2), pages 373-388, April.
    16. James D. Montgomery, 1991. "Equilibrium Wage Dispersion and Interindustry Wage Differentials," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 106(1), pages 163-179.
    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. Kennes, John & le Maire, Daniel & Roelsgaard, Sebastian T., 2020. "Equivalence of canonical matching models," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 124(C), pages 169-182.

    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. Shi, Shouyong, 2023. "Sequentially mixed search and equilibrium price dispersion," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 213(C).
    2. Kircher, Philipp & Wright, Randall & Julien, Benoit & Guerrieri, Veronica, 2017. "Directed Search: A Guided Tour," CEPR Discussion Papers 12315, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    3. Shi, Shouyong, 2016. "Customer relationship and sales," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 166(C), pages 483-516.
    4. Mangin, Sephorah, 2017. "A theory of production, matching, and distribution," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 172(C), pages 376-409.
    5. Guido Menzio & Irina Telyukova & Ludo Visschers, 2016. "Directed Search over the Life Cycle," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 19, pages 38-62, January.
    6. Derek Stacey, 2019. "Posted Prices, Search and Bargaining," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 33, pages 85-104, July.
    7. Cai, Xiaoming & Gautier, Pieter A. & Wolthoff, Ronald P., 2017. "Search frictions, competing mechanisms and optimal market segmentation," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 169(C), pages 453-473.
    8. Rabinovich, Stanislav & Wolthoff, Ronald, 2022. "Misallocation inefficiency in partially directed search," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 206(C).
    9. Leo Kaas & Philipp Kircher, 2015. "Efficient Firm Dynamics in a Frictional Labor Market," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 105(10), pages 3030-3060, October.
    10. Auster, Sarah & Gottardi, Piero, 2019. "Competing mechanisms in markets for lemons," Theoretical Economics, Econometric Society, vol. 14(3), July.
    11. Ronald P. Wolthoff, 2010. "Applications and Interviews: A Structural Analysis of Two-Sided Simultaneous Search," Working Papers tecipa-418, University of Toronto, Department of Economics.
    12. Kevin Fawcett & Shouyong Shi, 2018. "Learning, On-the-Job Search and Wage-Tenure Contracts," Working Papers tecipa-597, University of Toronto, Department of Economics.
    13. Andrew Kloosterman, 2016. "Directed search with heterogeneous firms: an experimental study," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 19(1), pages 51-66, March.
    14. Philipp Kircher, 2009. "Efficiency of Simultaneous Search," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 117(5), pages 861-913, October.
    15. Manolis Galenianos & Philipp Kircher, 2012. "On The Game‐Theoretic Foundations Of Competitive Search Equilibrium," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 53(1), pages 1-21, February.
    16. Pau Roldan & Sophia Gilbukh, 2017. "Firm Dynamics and Pricing under Customer Capital Accumulation," 2017 Meeting Papers 1235, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    17. De Sinopoli, Francesco & Ferraris, Leo & Meroni, Claudia, 2024. "Poisson Search," Journal of Mathematical Economics, Elsevier, vol. 112(C).
    18. Saara Hämäläinen & Vaiva Petrikaitė, 2024. "Prediction algorithms in matching platforms," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 78(3), pages 979-1020, November.
    19. Guido Menzio & Shouyong Shi, 2011. "Efficient Search on the Job and the Business Cycle," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 119(3), pages 468-510.
    20. Donna, Javier D. & Schenone, Pablo & Veramendi, Gregory F., 2020. "Networks, frictions, and price dispersion," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 124(C), pages 406-431.

    More about this item

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:red:sed019:322. 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: Christian Zimmermann (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/sedddea.html .

    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.