We compare the efficiency of price posting and bargaining in a market with search frictions and signaling of goods quality.We focus on the tradeoff between two roles of each pricing mechanism: directing search and reducing asymmetric information. This tradeoff has largely been ignored in the...

We study a large market with directed search and signaling. Each seller chooses an investment that determines the quality of the good which is the seller's private information. A seller also chooses the price of the good and the number of selling sites. After observing sellers' choices of prices...

To answer the question in the title, this paper characterizes the socially efficient organization of the market with search frictions. The efficient organization depends on the relative elasticity in the supply between the two sides of the market, the costs of participating in the market and...

In this paper, we introduce private information into a market with search frictions and evaluate the relative efficiency of two pricing mechanisms, price posting and bargaining. Each seller chooses investment that determines the quality of the good. This quality is the seller's private...