present at Midwest Economics Conference 2013With more and more Chinese students coming to study in the US, more and more educational agencies opened up in China. Those agencies help students in China applying for US colleges. This new rising market is attractive and growing rapidly. Not only in China, there are many educational agencies like these established in Korea, Japan and India. The regulation for the market seems to be weak in China. There is no standard price for the market; so many agencies can charge a high price. This study focuses on the equilibrium price of the educational agencies markets in China and the factors that affect the price they charge.
Prices of more than 70 agencies form China had been collected. The study compares the price charged by agencies of different region, different size and other factors. Quantitative results show that the supply side of the market (agencies) could have more market power than the demand side of the market (students). The supply side of the market has more information on the application process than the demand side of the market. There is also a big regional distinction between the big cities and small cities as well as north and south China. The ranking of a university plays the most important role in determining the price difference within an agency. The study aims to find a solution to regulate the educational market in China.Undergraduate Research Awards summer 2012No embargoAcademic Major: Economic
