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- June 2025
- Article
Collusion in Brokered Markets
By: John William Hatfield, Scott Duke Kominers and Richard Lowery
High commissions in the U.S. residential real estate agency market present a puzzle for economic theory because brokerage is not a concentrated industry. We model brokered markets as a game in which agents post prices for customers and then choose which other agents to... View Details
Keywords: Real Estate Agents; Real Estate; Realtors; Broker Networks; Brokerage; Brokerage Commissions; ＂Brokerage Industry; Brokered Markets; Brokering; Brokers; Industrial Organization; Repeated Game Framework; ＂Repeated Games＂; Collusion; Antitrust; Microeconomics; Market Design; Theory; Game Theory; Real Estate Industry
- June 2025
- Article
Integral Outside: The Financial Curb Market, the Electric Telegraph, and the Politics of Pricing in Second Empire France
Financial markets in nineteenth-century France were far more complex than an analysis of the official Bourse or its state-authorized brokers would suggest. Most financial transactions occurred on an illegal yet tacitly tolerated curb market called the coulisse, which... View Details
- December 2023
- Article
Brokerage Relationships and Analyst Forecasts: Evidence from the Protocol for Broker Recruiting
By: Braiden Coleman, Michael Drake, Joseph Pacelli and Brady Twedt
In this study, we offer novel evidence on how the nature of brokerage-client relationships can influence the quality of equity research. We exploit a unique setting provided by the Protocol for Broker Recruiting to examine whether relaxed broker non-compete agreement... View Details
Keywords: Brokers; Analysts; Forecasts; Bias; Protocol; Investment; Research; Forecasting and Prediction
- March 2023
- Article
Not from Concentrate: Collusion in Collaborative Industries
By: Jordan M. Barry, John William Hatfield, Scott Duke Kominers and Richard Lowery
The chief principle of antitrust law and theory is that reducing market concentration—having more, smaller firms instead of fewer, bigger ones—reduces anticompetitive behavior. We demonstrate that this principle is fundamentally incomplete.
In many... View Details
In many... View Details
Keywords: Antitrust; Antitrust Law; Antitrust Theory; Law And Economics; Collusion; Collaboration; Collaborative Industries; Regulation; ＂Repeated Games＂; IPOs; Initial Public Offerings; Underwriters; Real Estate; Real Estate Agents; Realtors; Syndicated Markets; Syndication; Brokers; Market Concentration; Competition; Law; Economics; Collaborative Innovation and Invention; Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms; Game Theory; Initial Public Offering
- December 2022
- Article
Conflicting Interests and the Effect of Fiduciary Duty: Evidence from Variable Annuities
By: Mark Egan, Shan Ge and Johnny Tang
We examine the variable annuity market to study conflicts of interest and the effect of fiduciary duty in brokerage markets. Insurers typically pay brokers higher commissions for selling more expensive annuities. Our results indicate that sales are four times as... View Details
- Article
The Value of Intermediation in the Stock Market
By: Marco Di Maggio, Mark Egan and Francesco Franzoni
We estimate a structural model of broker choice to quantitatively decompose the value that institutional investors attach to broker services. Studying over 300 million institutional equity trades, we find that investors are sensitive to both explicit and implicit... View Details
- February 2022
- Case
NFX Capital and Moov Technologies
By: Scott Duke Kominers and Nicole Tempest Keller
In July 2019, James Currier, a general partner at San Francisco-based NFX Ventures, was considering a seed stage investment of $1.5 million in Moov Technologies, a B2B marketplace for used industrial equipment. NFX was a venture capital firm focused on seed-stage... View Details
- July 2020 (Revised September 2020)
- Case
Property Finder's Strategy for Online Classifieds in the MENA Region
By: Krishna G. Palepu, Gamze Yucaoglu and Fares Khrais
The case opens in 2020 as Michael Lahyani, founder and CEO of Property Finder, Dubai’s leading online real estate classifieds portal, contemplates the company’s five-year growth strategy.
Since its founding in 2005 in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Property... View Details
- June 2020 (Revised October 2020)
- Case
Muddy Waters vs. eHealth: The Debate of a 'Lifetime'
By: Jonas Heese and Cristo Liautaud
In May 2020, an analyst was assessing eHealth’s performance. eHealth was an online / tele-sales broker of health insurance products. The stock had recently hit all-time highs, closing at a peak of $146 on March 4, 2020. But now, May 4, 2020, eHealth traded at $103. The... View Details
- January 2020
- Case
Lunchclub: Algorithmic Networking
By: Scott Duke Kominers and George Gonzalez
Algorithmic networking startup Lunchclub coordinates in-person meetings between professionals who would have been unlikely to meet. The company faces marketplace design, growth, and monetization challenges: The executive team has to refine Lunchclub's marketplace... View Details
- 2020
- Working Paper
Collusion in Brokered Markets
By: John William Hatfield, Scott Duke Kominers and Richard Lowery
The U.S. residential real estate agency market presents a puzzle for economic theory: commissions on real estate transactions have remained high for decades even though entry is frequent and costs are low. We model the real estate agency market, and other brokered... View Details
- 2021
- Working Paper
The Value of Intermediation in the Stock Market
By: Marco Di Maggio, Mark Egan and Francesco Franzoni
We estimate a structural model of broker choice to quantitatively decompose the value that institutional investors attach to broker services. Studying over 300 million institutional equity trades, we find that investors are sensitive to both explicit and implicit... View Details
- February 2019
- Article
The Market for Financial Adviser Misconduct
By: Mark Egan, Gregor Matvos and Amit Seru
We construct a novel database containing the universe of financial advisers in the United States from 2005 to 2015, representing approximately 10% of employment of the finance and insurance sector. We provide the first large-scale study that documents the economy-wide... View Details
- May 2018 (Revised June 2018)
- Case
Ashar Group: Brokers and Co-opetition in the Life Settlement Industry
By: Alexander Braun, Lauren H. Cohen, Christopher J. Malloy and Jiahua Xu
Connecting life insurance policyholders with potential investors (called Life Settlement Providers), Ashar Group plays a pivotal role in the industry. Its current position is, however, increasingly being challenged by consumer-direct models, led by major providers... View Details
- March 2013 (Revised October 2013)
- Supplement
Growing Integrated Services at Jones Lang LaSalle (2008) (C)
By: Ranjay Gulati and Luciana Silvestri
This case describes the strategic and organizational challenges that Jones Lang LaSalle (JLL) faced between 2005 and 2008. Having dismantled its long-standing service-line-oriented structure, JLL created two interdependent groups: Accounts and Markets. Accounts housed... View Details
- March 2013 (Revised October 2013)
- Supplement
Jones Lang LaSalle (2012): Integrated Services and the Architecture of Complexity (D)
By: Ranjay Gulati and Luciana Silvestri
This case describes the strategic and organizational challenges that Jones Lang LaSalle (JLL) faced between 2008 and 2012. In 2008, in order to strengthen the firm's brokerage team, JLL merged with The Staubach Company, a real estate services provider with a first-rate... View Details
- July 2012
- Case
Droga5: Launching Jay-Z's Decoded
By: Anita Elberse and Kwame Owusu-Kesse
In 2010, David Droga and Andrew Essex, co-founders of advertising agency Droga5, hope to convince both John Meneilly, manager of hip-hop star Shawn Carter—better known as Jay-Z—and a partner in Carter's company Roc Nation and Yusuf Mehdi, senior vice president of... View Details
- February 2011 (Revised December 2014)
- Case
RentJuice
By: Thomas Eisenmann and Liz Kind
RentJuice, founded in mid-2008, provided a subscription software service—sold via phone and live online webinars—that allowed real estate professionals like brokers and agents to manage and market rental listings, communicate with clients, and complete transaction... View Details
- December 2007 (Revised September 2009)
- Case
Wall Street's First Panic (A)
By: David A. Moss and Cole Bolton
In the early 1790s, a flood of newly issued public and private securities sparked an investment boom in the nascent United States. In New York, the bustling commercial district along Wall Street emerged as the center of the city's securities trade. One of the many... View Details
- August 2002 (Revised January 2003)
- Case
Siebel Systems: Anatomy of a Sale, Part 1
By: John A. Deighton and Das Narayandas
How does a $2 million software sale happen? This case traces efforts by Siebel Systems to sell lead management software to discount broker Quick & Reilly. The buying process is mapped out over four years. Covers in detail the last six months—from Siebel's initial... View Details