The mechanism used in Nash implementation is a form of direct democracy, taking everyone''s opinion into account. We augment this mechanism with a political process that selects the opinions of a subset of the individuals. We study three such processes -- oligarchy, oligarchic democracy and...

This paper proposes an assignment model where sorting occurs on attributes that are simultaneously a skill (Sattinger, 1979) and a preference (Tinbergen, 1956). The key feature of this model is that the wage function admits both jobs'' and workers'' attributes as arguments. Since this function...

We propose a model on strategic formation of communication networks with (i) link specificity: the more direct links somebody maintains, the less she can specify her attention per link, the lower her links’ value, while this negative externality was previously ignored in the communication...

We study duopolistic competition in a differentiated market with firms setting prices and quantities, without explicitly imposing market clearing. Unlike the commonly adopted assumption of profit maximizing firms, we assume firm behavior to be shaped by a Darwinian dynamic: the less fitter firm...

Existing experimental research on behavior in weakest-link games shows overwhelmingly theinability of people to coordinate on the efficient equilibrium, especially in larger groups. Wehypothesize that people will be able to coordinate on efficient outcomes, provided they havesufficient freedom...

We study the role of monotonicity in the characterization of incentive compatible allocation rules when types are multi-dimensional, the mechanism designer may use monetary transfers, and agents have quasi-linear preferences over outcomes and transfers. It is well-known that monotonicity of the...

The classical bankruptcy problem (O''Neill, 1982) is extended by assuming that the agents have non-homogenous preferences over several estates. A special case is the one in which there are finitely many estates and the agents have homogenous preferences, i.e., constant utilities, per estate. In...

We study a spatial model of party formation in which the set of agendas is the unit circle. We characterize the sets of pure-strategy Nash equilibria under the plurality and proportional rules. In both rules, multiple configurations of parties are possible in Nash equilibrium. We refine our...

Suppose that a firm has several owners and that the future is uncertain in the sense that one out of many different states of nature will realize tomorrow. An owner''s time preference and risk attitude will determine the importance he places on payoffs in the different states. It is a...

We propose a new model to study the role of commitment as a sourceof strategic bargaining power. Two impatient players bargain aboutthe division of a pie under a standard bargaining protocol indiscrete time with time-invariant recognition probabilities.Instantaneous utility is linear, but...