Digital economy, search algorithm and online sales
Speaker：Huang Yangguang（Assistant Professor ,Department of Economics, Hong Kong University of Science and Technology）
Host：Huang Xuesong, Assistant Professor, Lingnan College
Time and Date：14:30-16:30, Jun. 10, 2022
Venue: Room 902, MBA building
Language: English +Chinese
Meeting Link: Tencent meeting number: 970-491-424
Abstract:
The rise of the digital economy has greatly reduced the cost of search and sales. The head platform enterprises are easy to use the network effect to grow bigger and stronger, and expand their business, which has also spawned many antitrust issues, such as big data killing and algorithm discrimination. One of the significant features of online sales is that buyers need to rely on the search tools provided by the platform to process information when searching for products. We have built a model to describe how the search algorithm affects the search process of buyers and affects the balance and benefits of the market. If a platform uses a very unfair search algorithm, buyers will easily receive duplicate information from a small group of sellers. This time, buyers consider less options and suppress competition. By analyzing the data from the takeaway platform, we found that the market search results distribution is more uneven market, and there will be higher average prices and a more concentrated sales distribution. We suggest that regulators should restrict the search algorithm to provide too much duplicate information.
Profile of the speaker:
Huang Yangguang, 2009 undergraduate graduates of Lingnan College of Sun Yat -sen University, obtained a PhD in economics from the University of Washington in 2016. Since 2016, he has worked at the Department of Economics of the University of Science and Technology of China and is currently an assistant professor. The main research areas are industrial organizations, micro, digital economy, and innovation policies. They have published many papers in top academic journals such as Management Science, International Economic Review, Games and Economic Behavior, EUROPEAN Economic Review.
