Efficiency with(out) intermediation in repeated bilateral trade

TL;DR

This paper investigates conditions for achieving efficiency in repeated bilateral trade models with correlated private information, examining the role of intermediaries and information structures under budget constraints.

Contribution

It derives conditions for efficiency with ex post and interim budget balance, introduces interim budget balance, and characterizes mechanisms with or without intermediaries.

Findings

Efficiency depends on model primitives and information structure.

Intermediaries can facilitate efficiency under certain conditions.

Less information does not always lead to better efficiency in dynamic mechanisms.

Abstract

This paper analyzes repeated version of the bilateral trade model where the independent payoff relevant private information of the buyer and the seller is correlated across time. Using this setup it makes the following five contributions. First, it derives necessary and sufficient conditions on the primitives of the model as to when efficiency can be attained under ex post budget balance and participation constraints. Second, in doing so, it introduces an intermediate notion of budget balance called interim budget balance that allows for the extension of liquidity but with participation constraints for the issuing authority interpreted here as an intermediary. Third, it pins down the class of all possible mechanisms that can implement the efficient allocation with and without an intermediary. Fourth, it provides a foundation for the role of an intermediary in a dynamic mechanism design model under informational constraints. And, fifth, it argues for a careful interpretation of the "folk proposition" that less information is better for efficiency in dynamic mechanisms under ex post budget balance and observability of transfers.