In a bargaining setting with asymmetrically informed, inequity-averse parties, a fully efficient mechanism (i.e., the double auction) exists if and only if compassion is strong. Less compassionate parties do not trade in the double auction in the limit of strong envy.

During the recent sales of UMTS licenses in Europe some countries used auctions while others resorted to so-called Beauty Contests. There seems to be a wide consensus among economists that in these and other contexts like privatisation an auction is the better selling mechanism. However, why...

During the recent sales of UMTS licenses in Europe some countries used auctions while others resorted to so-called Beauty Contests. There seems to be a wide consensus among economists that in these and other contexts like privatisation an auction is the better selling mechanism. However, why...

We consider the contracting problem of a principal who faces an agent with private information and cannot commit to not renegotiate a chosen contract. To analyze this problem, we propose an infinite horizon negotiation protocol in which renegotiation is frictionless, executed without delay and...

We consider the problem of a principal who wishes to contract with a privately informed agent and is not able to commit to not renegotiating any mechanism. That is, we allow the principal, after observing the outcome of a mechanism to renegotiate the resulting contract without cost by proposing...

We analyze the contracting problem of a principal who faces an agent with private information and cannot commit to not renegotiating a chosen contract. We model this by allowing the principal to propose new contracts any number of times after observing the contract choice of the agent. We...

By offering or choosing a contract the informed agent might reveal information to the principal which could be used for immediate renegotiation. This is discussed in an axiomatic approach. We show that if, given the revealed information, there exists a contract which is preferred by everyone,...

Ever since the seminal work by Rothschild and Stiglitz (1976) on competitive insurance markets under adverse selection the equilibrium-non-existence problem has been one of the major puzzles in insurance economics. We extend the original analysis by considering firms that face capacity...

We discuss a competitive (labor) market where firms face capacity constraints and individuals differ according to their productivity. Firms offer two-dimensional contracts like wage and task level. Then workers choose firms and contracts. Workers might be rationed if the number of applicants...

We consider the problem of a principal who wishes to contract with a privately informed agent and is not able to commit to not renegotiating any mechanism. That is, we allow the principal, after observing the outcome of a mechanism to renegotiate the resulting contract without cost by proposing...