24 January: Atabek Atayev (QSMS Seminar)

Presenting “Search Markets with Uncertain Product Availability”at 12:15-13:30 in QA406.

PLEASE MIND OUR NEW VENUE FOR THIS YEAR!

On 24 January  2020, we have Atabek Atayev of University of Vienna visiting us. He is going to give a seminar on “Search Markets with Uncertain Product Availability” at 12:15-13:30 in room A406 in Building Q, Budapest University of Technology and Economics, Faculty of Economic and Social Sciences, Magyar tudósok körútja 2, 1117 Budapest. Please help the organisers by registering in advance at egervari.zsuzsanna@qsms.bme.hu Registration is free.
Also, see our Facebook event.

Abstract: In many markets buyers are poorly informed about how many active sellers there are (product availability) and prices, and therefore have to spend time to obtain this information. In contrast, sellers typically have a better idea about which rivals offer the product. Information asymmetry between buyers and sellers on product availability, rather than just prices, has not been scrutinized in the literature on consumer search. We propose a theoretical model that incorporates this kind of information asymmetry into a non-sequential search model. Our key finding is that greater product availability may harm buyers by mitigating their willingness to search and, thus, softening competition.