Knife-Edge or Plateau: When Do Market Models Tip?
| Title: | Knife-Edge or Plateau: When Do Market Models Tip? |
| Author: |
Fudenberg, Drew; Ellison, Glenn
Note: Order does not necessarily reflect citation order of authors. |
| Citation: | Ellison, Glenn, and Drew Fudenberg. 2003. Knife-edge or plateau: when do market models tip? Quarterly Journal of Economics 118, no. 4: 1249-1278. |
| Full Text & Related Files: |
fudenberg_knife-edge.pdf (172.2Kb; PDF) 
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| Abstract: | This paper studies whether agents must agglomerate at a single location in a class of models of two-sided interaction. In these models there is an increasing returns effect that favors agglomeration, but also a crowding or market-impact effect that makes agents prefer to be in a market with fewer agents of their own type. We show that such models do not tip in the way the term is commonly used. Instead, they have a broad plateau of equilibria with two active markets, and tipping occurs only when one market is below a critical size threshold. Our assumptions are fairly weak, and are satisfied in Krugman's model of labor market pooling, a heterogeneous-agent version of Pagano's asset market model, and Ellison, Fudenberg, and Möbius' model of competing auctions. |
| Published Version: | http://dx.doi.org/10.1162/003355303322552793 |
| Terms of Use: | This article is made available under the terms and conditions applicable to Other Posted Material, as set forth at http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:HUL.InstRepos:dash.current.terms-of-use#LAA |
| Citable link to this page: | http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:HUL.InstRepos:3160493 |
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