Why do firms delegate job design decisions to workers, and what are the implications of such delegation? We develop a private-information based theory of delegation, where delegation enables high-ability workers to signal their ability by choosing difficult tasks. Such signalling provides a more...

A seller wishes to sell an object to one of multiple bidders. The valuations of the bidders are privately known. We consider the joint design problem in which the seller can decide the accuracy by which bidders learn their valuation and to whom to sell at what price. We establish that optimal...

This paper provides a game theoretic model of price formation and order placement decisions in a dynamic limit order market. Investors can choose to post limit orders or to submit market orders. Limit orders result in better execution prices but face a risk of non-execution and a winner’s...

We study two-player common-value all-pay auctions (contests) with asymmetric information under the assumption that one of the players has an information advantage over his opponent. We characterize the unique equilibrium in these contests, and examine the role of information in determining the...

We study two-player common-value all-pay auctions (contests) with asymmetric information under the assumption that one of the players has an information advantage over his opponent and both players are budget-constrained. We generalize the results for all-pay auctions with complete information,...

This paper proposes several statistical tests for finite state Markov games to examine the null hypothesis that the data are generated from a single equilibrium. We formulate tests of (i) the conditional choice and state transition probabilities, (ii) the steady-state distribution, and (iii) the...

Public agencies rely on two key modes to procure goods and services: auctions and direct negotiations. The relative advantages of these two modes are still imperfectly understood. This paper therefore studies public procurement of regional passenger railway services in Germany, where regional...

We study a sequential all-pay auction with two contestants who are privately informed about a parameter (ability) that affects their cost of effort. In the model, contestant 1 (the first mover) exerts an effort in the first period which translates into an observable output but with some noise,...

We propose a new, easy-to-implement, class of payment rules, "Reference Rules," to make core-selecting package auctions more robust. Small, almost riskless, profitable deviations from "truthful bidding" are often easy for bidders to find under currently-used payment rules. Reference Rules...

There were enormous differences in the revenues from the European ‘third generation’ (3G, or ‘MTS’) mobile-phone license auctions, from 20 Euros per capita in Switzerland to 650 Euros per capita in the UK, though the values of the licences sold were similar. Poor auction designs in some...