We extend the 'no-haggling' result of Riley and Zeckhauser (1983) to the class of linear multiproduct monopoly problems when the buyer's valuations are smoothly distributed. In particular we show that there is no loss for the seller in optimizing over mechanisms such that all allocations belong...

We solve for the optimal mechanism for selling two goods when the buyer's demand characteristics are unobservable. In the case of substitutable goods, the seller has an incentive to offer lotteries over goods in order to charge the buyers with large differences in the valuations a higher price...

Interactions between players with private information and opposed interests are often prone to bad advice and inefficient outcomes, e.g. markets for financial or health care services. In a deception game we investigate experimentally which factors could improve advice quality. Besides advisor...

We compare the performance of liability rules for managing environmental disasters when third parties are harmed and cannot always be compensated. A firm can invest in safety to reduce the likelihood of accidents. The firm's investment is unobservable to authorities. Externality and asymmetric...

An advisor is supposed to recommend a financial product in the best interest of her client. However, the best product for the client may not always be the product yielding the highest commission to the advisor. Do advisors nevertheless provide truthful advice? If not, will a voluntary or...

The market for retail financial products (e.g. investment funds or insurance) is marred by information asymmetries. Clients are not well informed about the quality of these products. They have to rely on the recommendations of advisors. Incentives of advisors and clients may not be aligned, when...

In the context of a two-state, two-trader financial market herd model introduced by Avery and Zemsky (1998) we investigate how informational ambiguity in conjunction with waves of optimism and pessimism affect investor behavior, social learning and price dynamics. Without ambiguity, neither...

We examine optimal managerial compensation and turnover policy in a principal-agent model in which the firm output is serially correlated over time. The model captures a learning-by-doing feature: higher effort by the manager increases the quality of the match between the firm and the manager in...

We analyze a novel feedback mechanism between market and funding liquidity that causes self-fulfilling liquidity dry-ups. Financial firms facing funding withdrawals have an incentive to acquire information about their assets. Those with good assets gain by resorting to outside liquidity sources...

We study experimentally the effect of bargaining power in sequential trading mechanisms that offer the possibility to trade at a fixed price before an auction. In the "Buy-It-Now" format, the seller offers a price prior to the auction; whereas in the "Sell-It-No" format, it is the buyer. Both...