Valuation in Dynamic Bargaining Markets

Abstract

We study the impact on asset prices of illiquidity associated with search and bargaining in an economy in which agents can trade only when they find each other. Marketmakers' prices are higher and bidask spreads are lower if investors can find each other more easily. Prices become Walrasian as investors' or marketmakers' search intensities get large. Endogenizing search intensities yields natural welfare implications. Information can fail to be revealed through trading when search is difficult.