Platform-run marketplaces may exploit third-party sellers' data to develop competing products, but potential for future competition can deter sellers' entry. We explore how this trade-off affects the platform's referral fee and its own entry decision. We first characterize the platform's optimal...

We show that in markets with asymmetric information, even if there is full agreement on the choice of optimal information quality, entrusting the choice of (unverifiable) public information quality to traders who benefit from such information leads to inefficiencies. However, delegation of...

We study the informational role of prices in a stochastic environment. We provide a closed-form solution of the monopoly problem when the price imperfectly signals quality to the uninformed buyers. We then study the effect of noise on output, market price, information flows, and expected...

This paper studies the problem of a monopolistic platform which offers agents connection with one another. Agents have heterogeneous characteristics that are valued by some other agents and observed privately by the principal. The agents are privately informed about their heterogeneous...

In the classic beauty contest story of Morris and Shin (2002), the coordination game is set exogenously in the payoff function of agents. Our paper studies the existence of endogenous coordination in a context with one seller and many buyers. Due to imperfect information, the seller has an...

A seller faces a consumer with an uncertain value for the product. The seller has imperfect private information about the value and requests additional data to set the price. The consumer can decline any request. The consumer's willingness to provide data depends on his belief about the seller's...

Each agent in a market needs to supplement his skill with a particular skill of another agent to complete his project. A platform matches the agents and allows members of the same match to share their skills. A match is valuable to an agent if he is matched with any agent who possesses a skill...

We study the informational role of prices in a stochastic environment. We provide a closed-form solution of the monopoly problem when the price imperfectly signals quality to the uninformed buyers. We then study the effect of noise on output, market price, information flows, and expected...

Consider a large market with asymmetric information, in which sellers choose whether to cooperate or deviate and cheat their buyers, and buyers decide whether to re-purchase from different sellers. We model active trade relationships as links in a buyer-seller network and suggest a framework for...

It is shown that if there is adverse selection on seller’s ability in experience goods market, credible communication can be sustained by reputation motives in spite of the inherent conflict of interests between sellers and buyers. In the absence of “commitment” types, reputation motives...