搜寻成本、声誉与网上交易市场价格离散

Searching cost,reputation and price dispersion of on-line market

基于搜寻理论,探讨了当网上交易市场中卖家声誉以及买家保留价格之间存在差异时,搜寻成本对均衡价格水平和离散程度的影响,进而研究了声誉同搜寻成本之间的相互作用.研究表明:较高的搜寻成本使得不同声誉水平的卖家可以同时存在于网上交易市场;为了同高声誉卖家展开竞争,低声誉卖家不得不将产品的价格降低,从而导致网上交易市场产品价格的离散化;不同保留价格的买家付出不同的搜寻活动,并随着搜寻效率的提高,市场均衡价格不断降低;最终,低声誉卖家将被逐出网上交易市场.此外,高声誉卖家通过提供广告推广活动提高了买家的搜寻效率,使得买家搜寻活动有所减少,从而买家愿意为高声誉卖家支付较高的价格,导致市场价格离散加剧.

According to the searching theory, we explore the effects of searching cost on equilibrium price and price dispersion following the variability of sellers＇ reputation and buyers＇ reservation price. Moreover, we analyze the interaction between reputation and searching cost. The results show that higher searching cost can make sellers with different reputation coexist in the on-line markets; in order to compete with the higher- repu- tation sellers, sellers with lower reputation have to reduce the product price and thus leads to price dispersion; buyers with different reserve price commit to different searching activities and lower-reputation sellers will be expelled from the on-line market along with the improvement of searching efficiency. Furthermore, the adver- tisement by higher-reputation sellers can improve buyers＇ searching efficiency and reduce buyers＇ searching activities. In order to compete with higher-reputation firms, the lower-reputation sellers have to reduce the price and thus the price dispersion become more serious.