Market organisation and trading relationships

In this paper we give a theoretical model of buyers' behaviour on a market for a perishable good where no prices are posted. We show that if buyers le arn from their own previous experience there is a sharp division between th ose who learn to be loyal to certain sellers and those who continue to 'sho p around'. This feature remains in more general models which are simulated and is consistent with empirical data from the Marseille fish market.