Competing Matchmaking

We study how competing matchmakers use prices to sort participants into search markets, where they form random pairwise matches, and how equilibrium outcomes compare with monopoly in terms of prices, search market structure and sorting efficiency. The role of prices to facilitate sorting is compromised by the need to survive price competition. We show that the competitive outcome can be less efficient in sorting than the monopoly outcome. In particular, the need to survive price competition results in a smaller and less efficient quality difference in equilibrium search markets.