We study the effects of improvements in market transparency on eBay on seller exit and continuing sellers' behavior. An improvement in market transparency by reducing strategic bias in buyer ratings led to a significant increase in buyer valuation especially of sellers rated poorly prior to the...

This paper characterizes the optimal information structure in competitive insurance markets with adverse selection. A regulator assigns ratings to individuals according to their risk characteristics, insurers offer fixed insurance contracts to each rating group, and the market clears as in...

We study the impact of a fully-funded social security system in an economy with heterogeneous consumers. The unobservability of individual health conditions leads to adverse selection in the private annuity market. Introducing social security - which is immune to adverse selection - affects...

This paper considers the arguments for fundamental pension reform in Germany and the United States. The two countries have recently made or are considering reforms that would reduce the generosity of the traditional, pay-as-you-go pension system. Some or all of the lost benefits would be...

We show that competing firms relax overall competition by lowering future barriers to entry. We illustrate our findings in a two-period model with adverse selection where banks strategically commit to disclose borrower information. By doing this, they invite rivals to enter their market....

This paper develops a theory of firm selection and growth and embeds it into an international trade framework of balanced growth. I assume that firm-level growth is the result of idiosyncratic productivity improvements while there is continuous arrival of new potential producers. Firms can also...

A Bayesian supply function equilibrium is characterized in a market where firms have private information about their uncertain costs. It is found that with supply function competition, and in contrast to Bayesian Cournot competition, competitiveness is affected by the parameters of the...

A finite number of sellers (n) compete in schedules to supply an elastic demand. The costs of the sellers have uncertain common and private value components and there is no exogenous noise in the system. A Bayesian supply function equilibrium is characterized; the equilibrium is privately...

A model is presented of a uniform price auction where bidders compete in demand schedules; the model allows for common and private values in the absence of exogenous noise. It is shown how private information yields more market power than the levels seen with full information. Results obtained...

We extend the seminal Rothschild and Stiglitz (1976) model on competitive insurance markets with asymmetric information in the spirit of Wilson (1977)'s 'anticipatory equilibrium' by introducing an additional stage in which initial contracts can be withdrawn after observation of competitors'...