We examine the effects of informational intermediation by a third party 'infomediary' in a search model with heterogeneous seller qualities and asymmetric information. The infomediary earns revenue by selling a list of accredited sellers (a 'guidebook') to buyers and selling accreditations to...

This paper develops a model of simple 'reputation systems' that monitor and publish information about the behavior of sellers in a market with search frictions and asymmetric information. The reputations created by these systems influence the equilibrium search investments of buyers and thus...