A number of identical objects is allocated to a set of privately informed agents. Agents have linear utility in money. The designer wants to assign objects to agents that possess specific traits, but the allocation can only be conditioned on the willingness to pay and on observable...

I study the ex-ante efficient allocation of a set of quality-heterogeneous objects to a number of heterogeneous risk-neutral agents. Agents have independent private values, which represent the maximum cost they are willing to sustain to obtain an object of unitary quality. The designer faces a...

Many blame the recent financial market turmoil on ratings agencies. We develop an equilibrium model of the market for ratings and use it to examine popular arguments about the origins of and cures for ratings inflation. In the model, asset issuers can shop for ratings - observe multiple ratings...

This paper establishes that posting a price in each period is a revenue-maximizing allocation mechanism in a finite period model without commitment. A risk-neutral seller has one object to sell and faces a risk-neutral buyer whose valuation is private information and drawn from an arbitrary...

Legal provisions that protect politicians from arrest and prosecution exist throughout much of the modern democratic world. Why, and with what effects, do societies choose to place their politicians above the law? We examine the institution of immunity both theoretically and empirically. Our...

This paper establishes that posting a price in each period is a revenue-maximizing allocation mechanism in a finite period model without commitment. A risk-neutral seller has one object to sell and faces a risk-neutral buyer whose valuation is private information and drawn from an arbitrary...