时间：2024年4月16日（周二）14：00-16:00

主题：From Cash to Buy-Now-Pay-Later: Impacts of platform-provided credit on market efficiency

地点：明德主楼734会议室

主讲人：胡博，复旦大学经济学院助理教授，博士毕业于阿姆斯特丹自由大学和丁伯根研究所。研究方向为应用微观理论，关注的研究问题包括搜寻经济学、平台经济等。其文章发表于Rand Journal of Economics,《经济研究》等国内外顶尖学术期刊。主持国家自然科学基金等项目，他还担任过International Economic Review, Journal of Health Economics等国际期刊的匿名审稿人。

摘要：Many e-commerce platforms offer two services simultaneously: they match buyers and sellers (brokerage) and provide payment options like buy-now-pay-later (credit provision). We investigate how the platform's dual role affects allocation efficiency in a directed search framework. We consider a set-up with a monopolistic platform and a large number of sellers where the sellers exhibit heterogeneous matching capacities. In equilibrium, sellers with higher matching capacities are capable of attracting longer queues of buyers and setting higher prices; thus, their costs of dealing in cash payment (e.g., inflation costs) are higher. These sellers, therefore, are more inclined to use the platform's credit services. We show that the credit provided by the platform generally deviates from what would be socially optimal. The platform may offer excessive credit, aiming to increase profits through higher transaction fees, or insufficient credit, as it only partially benefits from sellers engaging in credit trade. Our study underscores the regulatory challenges associated with the dual role.