Research
JMP
- Market Congestion and Efficiency of Decentralized Markets: Evidence from Salvage Car AuctionsJob Market Paper , 2025
In decentralized online marketplaces, platforms often employ non-price mechanisms to reduce market congestion, enhance revenue, and improve efficiency. This study explores how the choice of trading mechanisms affects the dynamics of supply and demand. We develop a dynamic auction model incorporating endogenous entry, product heterogeneity, and bargaining to analyze the U.S. salvage car market. We characterize a static equilibrium where the demand and supply are shaped both by arriving agents and the existing agents. Using a novel dataset obtained through web scraping, we estimate the demand system of incoming buyers and investigate how their entry and bidding decisions shape the product space at equilibrium. In the counterfactual study, our findings suggest that transitioning from the current mixed selling method—consisting of Pure Sale (a no-reserve auction) and Reserve Sale (a reserve auction followed by contingent negotiation)—to exclusively Pure Sale reduces the demand-side market thickness by 53% and supply-side market thickness by 23%, resulting in a drop in the aggregate buyer-to-seller ratio from 3.39 to 2.24. Despite these reductions, the change would increase overall welfare by 5% due to less congestion and information friction.
Other Working Papers
- Estimating Matching Games with Profit and Price DataWorking paper , 2025
Policy Paper
- The Theoretical and Empirical Relationship Between Spectrum Concentration and Downstream Service QualityJournal of Information Policy, Jul 2025
This article investigates the impact of spectrum concentration on the quality of wireless services. The article develops a theoretical model of wireless service competition, examining how spectrum endowments affect the quality of service offered to consumers, particularly download speeds. The findings suggest that while spectrum concentration can enhance efficiency, it also reduces service providers’ incentives to compete. The article employs an empirical model to assess the relationship between spectrum concentration and service quality. These insights inform the ongoing policy debate on the optimal level of spectrum concentration to balance service quality and market competition.