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Review of Economic Studies Vol. 87 No. 2 2019

Frictional Goods Markets: Theory and Applications

Zachary Bethune1; Michael Choi2; Randall Wright3

1 University of Virginia · 2 University of California, Irvine · 3 Zhejiang University, University of Wisconsin-Madison, FRB Minneapolis

Abstract

We analyse dynamic general equilibrium models with more-or-less directed search by informed buyers and random search by uninformed buyers. This nests existing specifications and generates new insights. A quantitative application concerns the welfare cost of inflation, which is known to be quite high with pure random search and low with pure directed search. Our calibration implies the impact of inflation is fairly low, in part because, in addition to the usual costs, it provides benefits by more heavily taxing high-price sellers that inefficiently profit from exploiting the uninformed. Other applications analyse analytically and numerically changes in credit conditions and information.

DOI
10.1093/restud/rdz049
Volume
87
Issue
2
Pages
691-720
Language
en
Sources
bibtex:phds-export.bib openalex crossref

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