Consider a contest for a prize in which each player knows his/her own ability, but may or may not know those of his/her rivals (the complete or incomplete information regimes). Our main result is that, if the value of the prize is high, more effort and output are engendered under incomplete...

We analyze a simultaneous ascending auction with anonymous item prices, for two items that are substitutes. This popular format entails increased opportunities for coordination among bidders, since bids are observable and can be used as signaling. This has happened, e.g., in the Netherlands 3G...

We show that any deterministic mechanism, for allocating identical items that are complements to budget-constrained bidders, cannot simultaneously satisfy individual-rationality, strategy-proofness, Pareto-efficiency, and no-positive-transfers. This holds even for two bidders, two items, and...

We study multi-unit auctions for bidders that have a budget constraint, a situation very common in practice that has received relatively little attention in the auction theory literature. Our main result is an impossibility: there is no deterministic auction that (1) is individually rational and...

This paper studies optimal auction design in a private value setting with endogenous information gathering. We develop a general framework for modeling information acquisition when a seller wants to sell an object to one of several potential buyers, who can each gather information about their...

We present the first general positive result on the construction of collusion-resistant mechanisms, that is, mechanisms that guarantee dominant strategies even when agents can form arbitrary coalitions and exchange compensations (sometimes referred to as transferable utilities or side payments)....

A contract auction establishes a contract between a center and one of the bidders. As contracts may describe many terms, preferences over contracts typically display indifferences. The Qualitative Vickrey Auction (QVA) selects the best contract for the winner that is at least as good for the...

The theory of market signaling and screening is a cornerstone of the new economics of information. The last two and a half decades have not only witnessed a series of remarkable theoretical developments but also a wide range of applications. This essay examines the key theoretical issues and...

Game theory is usually difficult to test in the field because predictions typically depend sensitively on features that are not controlled or observed. We conduct one such test using both laboratory and field data from the Swedish lowest unique positive integer (LUPI) game. In this game, players...

Often an organization or government must allocate goods without collecting payment in return. This may pose a difficult problem either when agents receiving those goods have private information in regards to their values or needs. In this paper, we find an optimal mechanism to allocate goods...