Consumer Price Search and Platform Design Analysis

This dataset supports research on consumer price search and platform design trade-offs, using detailed browsing data from eBay. The analysis combines this data with an equilibrium model of consumer search and price competition to assess marketplace design changes. The author is Michael Dinerstein, affiliated with ICPSR Harvested Dataverse.

Use Cases

• Analyze detailed browsing data from eBay to model consumer search behavior and price competition.
• Assess the trade-off between guiding consumers to desired products and strengthening seller price incentives using an equilibrium model.
• Study the impact of a specific change in eBay's marketplace design on consumer navigation and seller pricing strategies.

Strengths

• Data is associated with a specific, published research study on platform design.
• The dataset was last updated on February 23, 2026, indicating recent maintenance.

Limitations

• The specific data structure, including column names, row count, and file formats, is unknown.
• The dataset's temporal and geographic coverage are not specified.

Provenance

Source

ICPSR Harvested Dataverse

Collection Method

Detailed browsing data from eBay combined with an equilibrium model.

Freshness

Last updated on 2026-02-23.