The Value of User-Specific Information for Two-Sided Matchmakers

This paper analyzes the incentives of a monopolistic matchmaker to generate user-specific information in order to increase match-quality and profits. By merging two-sided-markets with two-sided-matching we derive a micro-foundation of cross-side externalities dependent on the number of potential matches and the accuracy-level of user-specific information. Incentives to invest into identification technologies are determined by the scalability of the (fixed) investments and the resulting effect on match-quality. We show that these effects work into opposing directions, i.e., while scalability works in favor for platforms with large customer bases, the effect of identification on match-quality is greater for small scale platforms.