In a general interdependent preference environment, we characterize when two payoff types can be distinguished by their rationalizable strategic choices without any prior knowledge of their beliefs and higher order beliefs. We show that two payoff types are strategically distinguishable if and...

Strategy-proofness, requiring that truth-telling be a dominant strategy, is a standard concept in social choice theory. However, this concept has serious drawbacks. In particular, many strategy-proof mechanisms have multiple Nash equilibria, some of which produce the wrong outcome. A possible...

We study the informed-principal problem in a bilateral asymmetric information trading setting with interdependent values and quasi-linear utilities. The informed seller proposes a mechanism and voluntarily certifies information about the good's characteristics. When the set of certifiable...

We study a multi-dimensional collective decision under incomplete information. Agents have Euclidean preferences and vote by simple majority on each issue (dimension), yielding the coordinate-wise median. Judicious rotations of the orthogonal axes -- the issues that are voted upon -- lead to...

This paper provides a complete characterization of equilibria in a game-theoretic version of Rothschild and Stiglitz's (1976) model of competitive insurance. I allow for stochastic contract offers by insurance firms and show that a unique symmetric equilibrium always exists. Exact conditions...

I consider the interaction between an agent and a principal who is unable to commit not to renegotiate. The agent's type only affects the principal's utility. The principal has access to a public signal, correlated with the agent's type, which can be used to (imperfectly) verify the agent's...

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...

Many sales, sports, and research contests are put in place to maximize contestants’ performance. We investigate and provide a complete characterization of the prize structures that achieve this objective in settings with many contestants. The contestants may be ex-ante asymmetric in their...

We show that a solution to the problem of mechanism selection by an informed principal exists in a large class of environments with “generalized private values”: the agents’ payoff functions are independent of the principal’s type. The solution is an extension of Maskin and Tirole’s...

This paper examines a class of contractual relationships with specific investment, a non-durable trading opportunity, and renegotiation. Trade actions are modeled as individual and trade-action-based option contracts ("non-forcing contracts") are explored. The paper introduces the distinction...