@MISC{Y07thesorting, author = {Jan Eeckhout Y}, title = {The Sorting Effect of Price Competition}, year = {2007} }
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Abstract
–Preliminary draft – We investigate under which conditions price competition leads to sorting of buyers and sellers. In a decentralized Walrasian market where sellers post prices and buyers choose whom to buy from positive assortative matching obtains only if there is a high enough degree of complementarity between buyer and seller types. The relevant condition is root-supermodularity; i.e., the square root of the match value function is supermodular. This condition is weaker than log-supermodularity, a condition required for positive assortative matching in markets with random search. Negative assortative matching obtains whenever the match value function is weakly submodular.