We analyze a setting common in privatizations, public tenders, and takeovers in which the ex post efficient allocation, i.e., the first best, is not implementable. Our first main result is that the open ascending auction is not second best because it is prone to rushes, i.e., all active bidders...

We investigate Groves mechanisms for economies where (i) a social outcome specifies a group of winning agents, and (ii) a cost function associates each group with a monetary cost. In particular, we characterize both (i) the class of cost functions for which there are Groves mechanisms such that...

In the context of a canonical agency model, we study the payoff implications of introducing optimally structured incentives. We do so from the perspective of an analyst who does not know the agent's preferences for responding to incentives, but does know that the principal knows them. We...

For a partnership model with general type distributions and interdependent values, we derive the optimal dissolution mechanisms that, for arbitrary initial ownership, maximize any convex combination of revenue and social surplus. The solution involves ironing around typically interior worst-off...