Firms signal high quality through high prices even if the market structure is highly competitive and price competition is severe. In a symmetric Bertrand oligopoly where products may differ only in their quality, production cost is increasing in quality and the quality of each firm’s product...

Firms hiring fresh graduates face uncertainty on the future productivity of workers. Theory suggests that starting wages reflect this, with lower pay for greater uncertainty. We use the dispersion of exam grades within a field of education as an indicator of the unobserved heterogeneity that...

We consider price-fee competition in bilateral oligopolies with perfectly-divisible goods, non-expandable infrastructures, concentrated agents on both sides, and constant marginal costs. We define and characterize stable market outcomes. Buyers exclusively trade with the supplier with whom they...

This discussion paper resulted in a publication in <I>Strategic Behavior and the Environment</I>, 2014, 4, 321-360.<P> We study multiple agents along a general river structure that is expressed by a geography matrix and who have access to limited local resources, quasi-linear preferences over water and...</p></i>

I present a model in which individuals compete for a prize by choosing to apply or not. Abilities are private information and in attempt to select the best candidate, the committee compares applicants with an imperfect technology. The choice of application cost, size of the prize and use of...

We investigate the nature of the adverse selection problem in a market for adurable goodwhere trading and entry of new buyers and sellers takes place in continuoustime. In thecontinuous time model equilibria with properties that are qualitativelydifferent from thestatic equilibria, emerge....

This paper studies markets plagued with asymmetric information on the quality of traded goods. In Akerlof's setting, sellers are better informed than buyers. In contrast, we examine cases where buyers are better informed than sellers. This creates an inverse adverse selection problem: The market...

This discussion paper resulted in an article in <I>Economic Theory</I> (2002). Vol. 20, issue 3, pages 579-601.<P> We investigate the nature of market failure in a dynamic version of Akerlof (1970) where identical cohorts of a durable good enter the market over time. In the dynamic model, equilibria with...</p></i>

In the economics profession there is a fierce debate whether industrial and innovation policy should be targeted to specific sectors or firms. This paper discusses the welfare effects of such targeted policies from the perspective of strategic game theory of the firm. A theoretical case for...

Banks provide risky loans to firms which have superior information regarding the quality of their projects. Due to asymmetric information the banks face the risk of adverse selection. Credit Value-at-Risk (CVaR) regulation counters the problem of low quality, i.e. high risk, loans and therefore...