Econ Papers Daily / 期刊论文
消费者导向的信息中介与福利损失
Consumer‐Minded Informational Intermediary and Welfare Losses
摘要
This article examines the welfare implications of third-party informational intermediation. A seller sets the price of a product that is sold through an intermediary, who discloses information about the product to consumers. In a model where the intermediary is consumer-minded—has a payoff that depends on both the seller's revenue and the consumer surplus, we show that total welfare may decrease in the Pareto sense, as the intermediary's consumer-mindedness increases. Furthermore, we show that consumer-mindedness emerges endogenously when a revenue-maximizing intermediary is forward-looking and the consumer base is increasing in past consumer surplus.
中文摘要
本文考察了第三方信息中介的福利影响。卖方设定通过中介销售的产品价格，中介向消费者披露产品信息。在模型中，中介以消费者为导向——其收益同时取决于卖方收入和消费者剩余，我们证明，随着中介消费者导向程度的提高，总福利可能在帕累托意义上下降。此外，我们表明，当追求收入最大化的中介具有前瞻性，且消费者基数随过去消费者剩余增加时，消费者导向会内生地出现。