A queuing model of the market for access to trading partners

In this article, a market for access to trading partners arises through the operation of a competitive market in which consumers queue for goods at firms. Equilibrium occurs when firms and buyers face the same trade-off between price and wait time. The trade-off measures the cost to firms of more customers and the cost to customers of a shorter expected wait time, The queuing model is related to mechanisms that ration goods among potential buyers and to models in which the good is characterized by price and by a second variable reflecting likelihood of or delay in transaction.