caa a22 4500 605514720 CHVBK 20210128100706.0 cr unu---uuuuu 210128e20150501xx s 000 0 eng 10.1007/s10458-014-9260-6 doi (NATIONALLICENCE)springer-10.1007/s10458-014-9260-6 Two-sided search with experts [Elektronische Daten] [Yinon Nahum, David Sarne, Sanmay Das, Onn Shehory] In this paper we study distributed agent matching in environments characterized by uncertain signals, costly exploration, and the presence of an information broker. Each agent receives information about the potential value of matching with others. This information signal may, however, be noisy, and the agent incurs some cost in receiving it. If all candidate agents agree to the matching the team is formed and each agent receives the true unknown utility of the matching, and leaves the market. We consider the effect of the presence of information brokers, or experts, on the outcomes of such matching processes. Experts can, upon payment of either a fee or a commission, perform the service of disambiguating noisy signals and revealing the true value of a match to any agent. We analyze equilibrium behavior given the fee set by a monopolist expert and use this analysis to derive the revenue maximizing strategy for the expert as the first mover in a Stackelberg game. Interestingly, we find that better information can hurt: the presence of the expert, even if the use of her services is optional, can degrade both individual agents' utilities and overall social welfare. While in one-sided search the presence of the expert can only help, in two-sided (and general $$k$$ k -sided) search the externality imposed by the fact that others are consulting the expert can lead to a situation where the equilibrium outcome is that everyone consults the expert, even though all agents would be better off if the expert were not present. As an antidote, we show how market designers can enhance welfare by compensating the expert to change the price at which she offers her services. The Author(s), 2014 Multi-agent systems nationallicence Distributed matching nationallicence Information brokers nationallicence Nahum Yinon Department of Computer Science, Weizmann Institute of Science, 76100, Rehovot, Israel aut Sarne David Computer Science Department, Bar-Ilan University, 52900, Ramat Gan, Israel aut Das Sanmay Department of Computer Science and Engineering, Washington University in St. Louis, 63130, St. Louis, MO, USA aut Shehory Onn IBM Haifa Research Lab, Mount Carmel, 31905, Haifa, Israel aut Autonomous Agents and Multi-Agent Systems Springer US; http://www.springer-ny.com 29/3(2015-05-01), 364-401 1387-2532 29:3<364 2015 29 10458 https://doi.org/10.1007/s10458-014-9260-6 text/html Onlinezugriff via DOI BK010053 XK010053 XK010000 Metadata rights reserved Springer special CC-BY-NC licence nationallicence 1 research-article jats NATIONALLICENCE NATIONALLICENCE NL-springer NATIONALLICENCE 856 40 https://doi.org/10.1007/s10458-014-9260-6 text/html Onlinezugriff via DOI NATIONALLICENCE 700 1- Nahum Yinon Department of Computer Science, Weizmann Institute of Science, 76100, Rehovot, Israel aut NATIONALLICENCE 700 1- Sarne David Computer Science Department, Bar-Ilan University, 52900, Ramat Gan, Israel aut NATIONALLICENCE 700 1- Das Sanmay Department of Computer Science and Engineering, Washington University in St. Louis, 63130, St. Louis, MO, USA aut NATIONALLICENCE 700 1- Shehory Onn IBM Haifa Research Lab, Mount Carmel, 31905, Haifa, Israel aut NATIONALLICENCE 773 0- Autonomous Agents and Multi-Agent Systems Springer US; http://www.springer-ny.com 29/3(2015-05-01), 364-401 1387-2532 29:3<364 2015 29 10458