OxTalks will soon move to the new Halo platform and will become 'Oxford Events.' There will be a need for an OxTalks freeze. This was previously planned for Friday 14th November – a new date will be shared as soon as it is available (full details will be available on the Staff Gateway).
In the meantime, the OxTalks site will remain active and events will continue to be published.
If staff have any questions about the Oxford Events launch, please contact halo@digital.ox.ac.uk
We investigate how market congestion and information friction affect firm dy-namics and market efficiency in global e-commerce. Observational data and self-collected quality measures from AliExpress suggest significant demand frictions andpotential misallocation in the online market. A randomized experiment that offersnew exporters exogenous demand and information shocks demonstrates the limitedability of existing platform mechanisms to help small sellers overcome the demandfrictions. We show theoretically and quantitatively that having a large number ofmarket participants undermines the functioning of existing online mechanisms andhinders the discovery of high-quality sellers. Policy counterfactuals highlight thatblanket-wide onboarding initiatives can aggravate market congestion, slow down theresolution of the information problem, and result in market misallocation.
