I present a model in which a principal selects one among many agents to develop a project and influences the agent's ex post level of effort not by outcome-contingent rewards, but by the choice of the project's mission. The closer the project's mission to the agent's preferred mission, the...

An auction is externality-robust if unilateral deviations from equilibrium leave the other bidders' payoffs unaffected. The equilibrium and its outcome will then persist if certain types of externalities arise between bidders. One example are externalities due to spiteful preferences, which have...

This paper studies the impact of the presence of human subjects in the role of a seller on bidding in experimental second-price auctions. Overbidding is a robust finding in second- price auctions, and spite among bidders has been advanced as an explanation. If spite extends to the seller, then...

Behavioral robustness is essential in mechanism design. Existing papers focus on robustness as captured by dominant strategies. This paper studies the novel concept of externality-robustness, which addresses players' motives to affect other players' monetary payoffs. One example is externalities...

Behavioral robustness is essential in mechanism design. Existing papers focus on robustness as captured by dominant strategies. This paper studies the novel concept of externality-robustness, which addresses players' motives to affect other players' monetary payoffs. One example is externalities...

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...

Fees are omnipresent in markets but, with few exceptions, are omitted in economic models-such as Double Auctions-of these markets. Allowing for general fee structures, we show that their impact on incentives and efficiency in large Double Auctions hinges on whether the fees are homogeneous (as,...

We introduce a general class of simplicity standards that vary the foresight abilities required of agents in extensive-form games. Rather than planning for the entire future of a game, agents are presumed to be able to plan only for those histories they view as simple from their current...

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...

Many studies have found a gap between willingness-to-pay and willingness-to-accept that is inconsistent with standard theory. There is also evidence that the gap is eroded by experience gained in the laboratory and naturally occurring markets. This paper argues that the gap and the effects of...