We study a mechanism design problem under the assumption that renegotiation cannot be prevented. We investigate what kind of equilibria of which mechanisms are renegotiation-proof under a variety of renegotiation procedures, and which social choice functions can be implemented in a way that is...

We study how different demographic groups respond to incentives by comparing their performance in “high” and “low” stakes situations. The high stakes situation is the GRE examination and the low stakes situation is a voluntary experimental section of the GRE. We find that Males exhibit a...

One of the approaches in consumer theory considers each product as a collection of attributes. As opposed to the traditional approach, according to which consumer preferences for products are the underlying features of economic modeling, they are now derived from the composition and strength of...

Monderer and samet (1989) generalize Aumann's (1976) agreeing to disagree result for the case of beliefs. They show that if the posteriors of an event are "common p-blief" then they cannot differ by more than 2(1-p). We provide a different proof of this result with a lower bound of 1-p. An...

This paper shows that if rationality is not common knowledge, the no-trade theorem of Milgrom and Stokey (1982) fails to hold. We adopt Monderer and Samet's (1990) notion of common p-belief and show that when traders entertain doubts about the rationality of other traders, and even if these...

Many have observed that political candidates running for election are often purposefully expressing themselves in vague and ambiguous terms. Moreover, the candidates' ambiguity typically involves precisely those issues which stand in the center of public debate. In this paper, we provide a...

The Coase theorem states that in public good problems, when there are no transaction costs, once property rights are well defined, the efficient outcome will always result. In particular, the assignment of property rights has, by itself, no efficiency implications; different allocations of...

This paper studies how different demographic groups respond to incentives by comparing performance in the GRE examination in high and low stakes situations. The high stakes situation is the real GRE examination and the low stakes situation is a voluntary experimental section of the GRE that...

The European Commission is considering new ways to regulate the 'substances of human origin' - including blood, plasma, and cells - used in medical procedures from transfusions and transplants to assisted reproduction. This column argues that such legislation jeopardises the interests of both...

In second price internet auctions with a fixed end time, such as those on eBay, many bidders snipe', i.e., they submit their bids in the closing minutes or seconds of an auction. Late bids of this sort are much less frequent in auctions that are automatically extended if a bid is submitted very...