Before embarking on a project, a principal must often rely on an agent to learn about its profitability. We model this learning as a two-armed bandit problem and highlight the interaction between learning (experimentation) and production. We derive the optimal contract for both experimentation...

We analyze strategic leaks due to spying out a rival’s bid in a first-price auction. Such leaks induce sequential bidding, complicated by the fact that the spy may be a counterspy who serves the interests of the spied at bidder and reports strategically distorted information. This ambiguity...

We study a symmetric private value auction with signaling, in which the auction outcome is used by an outside observer to infer the bidders’ types. We elicit conditions under which an essentially unique D1 equilibrium bidding function exists in the second-price auction and the English auction....

We explain how the common practice of size-discovery trade detracts from overallfinancial market efficiency. At each of a series of size-discovery sessions, traders report theirdesired trades, generating allocations of the asset and cash that rely on the most recent exchangeprice. Traders can...

We consider the problem faced by a procurement agency that runs a mechanism for constructing an assortment of differentiated products with posted prices, from which heterogeneous consumers buy their most preferred alternative. Procurement mechanisms used by large organizations, including...

Optimally reallocating human capital to tasks is key for an organization to successfully navigate a transition. We study how to design employment contracts to allocate employees to different valuable projects within an organization given two simultaneous challenges: The employees have private...

We study the design of sequential procurement strategies that integrate stochastic and strategic information. We consider a buyer who repeatedly demands a certain good and is unable to commit to long-term contracts. In each time period, the buyer makes a price offer to a seller who has private,...

I study a mechanism design problem of allocating a single good to an agent when the mechanism is followed by a post-mechanism game (aftermarket) played between the agent and a third-party. The aftermarket is beyond the direct control of the designer. However, she can influence the information...

A mediator, with no prior information and no control over the market protocol, attempts to redesign the information structure in the market by running an information intermediation mechanism with transfers that first elicits information from an agent, and then discloses information to another...

We study the design of monitoring in dynamic settings with moral hazard. An agent (e.g. a firm) benefits from reputation for quality, and a principal (e.g. a regulator) can learn the agent's quality via costly inspections. Monitoring plays two roles: an incentive role, because outcomes of...