Decentralized and impersonal exchange is fundamental to contemporary economies, where many interactions take place among individuals with low levels of information about their counterpart. We review the experimental literature about markets with frictions, where strangers interact in pairs...

We develop theoretical underpinnings of pairwise random matching processes. We formalize the mechanics of matching, and study the links between properties of the different processes and trade frictions. A particular emphasis is placed on providing a mapping between matching technologies and...

We endogenize the trade mechanism in a search economy with many homogenous sellers and many heterogenous buyers of unobservable type. We study how heterogeneity and the traders' continuation values - which are endogenous - influence the sellers' choice of trade mechanism. Sellers trade off the...