Economic Analysis Of Intermediaries In The Electronic Commerce Market

This thesis analyzes the economics of online intermediaries that perform the mediating tasks in the electronic commerce market. Compared with traditional intermediaries, the services that online intermediaries can provide not only include aggregation, pricing, search and trust building, but also include such new inventions as content services and community services. Online intermediaries can be classified into different categories according to different criteria. We mainly discuss the taxonomy of infomediaries and electronic market makers. Then we analyze the business models adopted by different types of online intermediaries.This thesis models the effect of online intermediaries on search cost and equilibrium price. It is shown that when there is an online intermediary in the market, the equilibrium price level will be lower and the optimal search sample will be larger. We also use the tools of game theory to analyze the reputation mechanism set up by online intermediaries in the electronic commerce market. It is the nature of repeated game that forces sellers to trade off between the long-term and short-term payoff. Online intermediaries can take some action to impel sellers to choose win-win strategies. Finally we discuss the development status and existing problems of online intermediaries in China, and then we apply the insights from the model into some case studies.