As an intermediary improves trust between two sides of its market to facilitate matching and transactions, it faces an increased risk of disintermediation: with sufficient trust, the two sides may circumvent the intermediary to avoid the intermediary's fees. We investigate the relationship...

The scalability of a marketplace depends on the operations of the marketplace platform as well as its sellers' cost structures and capacities. When fixed costs of entry are high, sellers with small capacities may be deterred from entering the market because of their inability to leverage...

Certifications are an important signaling device for attenuating information asymmetry. This study examines their role on a Chinese online marketplace lending platform, which grants certifications to borrowers after they submit the necessary documents. Although the platform verifies the...