Match Quality, Search, and the Internet Market for Used Books / Glenn Ellison, Sara Fisher Ellison.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Ellison, Glenn.

Contributor:

National Bureau of Economic Research.

Ellison, Sara Fisher.

Series:

Working Paper Series (National Bureau of Economic Research) no. w24197.

NBER working paper series no. w24197

Language:

English

Physical Description:

1 online resource: illustrations (black and white);

Place of Publication:

Cambridge, Mass. National Bureau of Economic Research 2018.

Summary:

This paper examines the effect of the Internet on markets in which match-quality is important, including an analysis of the market for used books. A model in which sellers of unusual objects wait for high-value buyers to arrive brings out match quality and competition effects through which improved search technologies may increase both price dispersion and social welfare. A reduced-form empirical analysis finds support for a number of more nuanced predictions of the model in the context of the used book market, exploiting both cross-sectional differences across books and time-series differences in the wake of Amazon's acquisition and incorporation of a large used book marketplace. The paper develops a framework for structural estimation of a model based on the theory. The estimates suggest that the shift to Internet sales substantially increased both seller profits and consumer surplus.

Notes:

Print version record

January 2018.