Timing, Entry, and Revenue in Clock-Based Platform Markets

Fuente: arXiv
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Main Authors: Pitz, Thomas, Ferraz, Vinicius
Format: Preprint
Published: 2026
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_version_ 1866917495437262848
author Pitz, Thomas
Ferraz, Vinicius
author_facet Pitz, Thomas
Ferraz, Vinicius
contents On platforms where time-to-contract is itself payoff-relevant--Aalsmeer's flower auctions, ride-hailing dispatch, on-demand-labor matching--the textbook revenue equivalence between Dutch and first-price formats holds the trading outcome fixed. Once participation is endogenous and both sides bear waiting costs, the trading format directly shapes who enters, market thickness, volume, and platform revenue. The platform's ranking of the descending clock against immediate and batched posted-price benchmarks is decided by two estimable primitives on each side of the market: an earnings gap and a timing gap. A bidirectional four-case classification identifies when the descending clock dominates at every level of waiting costs, only above a floor, only below a ceiling, or not at all; the last case is unconditional -- when the descending clock charges no more per trade and contracts no faster than the posted-price benchmark, it cannot win. No format admits a universal ranking. The local verdict propagates through endogenous entry, and cross-side complementarity amplifies shared local advantages into joint dominance. A conditional revenue theorem converts entry and volume gains into a platform-revenue ranking. In calibrated parameterizations the revenue-ranking switching boundary lies near $p_0/\bar v\approx 1$, inside the empirical range for ride-hailing platforms. A measurement protocol provides explicit nonparametric estimators for the six reduced-form objects and a test statistic for the dominance condition, and a Lean~4 formalization audits the algebraic and order-theoretic content. In markets where goods or services cannot wait, the speed of the trading mechanism is a primitive of market design.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2604_10638
institution arXiv
publishDate 2026
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Timing, Entry, and Revenue in Clock-Based Platform Markets
Pitz, Thomas
Ferraz, Vinicius
Theoretical Economics
91B26, 91A80
On platforms where time-to-contract is itself payoff-relevant--Aalsmeer's flower auctions, ride-hailing dispatch, on-demand-labor matching--the textbook revenue equivalence between Dutch and first-price formats holds the trading outcome fixed. Once participation is endogenous and both sides bear waiting costs, the trading format directly shapes who enters, market thickness, volume, and platform revenue. The platform's ranking of the descending clock against immediate and batched posted-price benchmarks is decided by two estimable primitives on each side of the market: an earnings gap and a timing gap. A bidirectional four-case classification identifies when the descending clock dominates at every level of waiting costs, only above a floor, only below a ceiling, or not at all; the last case is unconditional -- when the descending clock charges no more per trade and contracts no faster than the posted-price benchmark, it cannot win. No format admits a universal ranking. The local verdict propagates through endogenous entry, and cross-side complementarity amplifies shared local advantages into joint dominance. A conditional revenue theorem converts entry and volume gains into a platform-revenue ranking. In calibrated parameterizations the revenue-ranking switching boundary lies near $p_0/\bar v\approx 1$, inside the empirical range for ride-hailing platforms. A measurement protocol provides explicit nonparametric estimators for the six reduced-form objects and a test statistic for the dominance condition, and a Lean~4 formalization audits the algebraic and order-theoretic content. In markets where goods or services cannot wait, the speed of the trading mechanism is a primitive of market design.
title Timing, Entry, and Revenue in Clock-Based Platform Markets
topic Theoretical Economics
91B26, 91A80
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2604.10638