We investigate strategic information transmission with communication error, or noise. Our main finding is that adding noise can improve welfare. With quadratic preferences and a uniform type distribution, welfare can be raised for almost every bias level by introducing a sufficiently small...

The provision of public goods under asymmetric information has most often been viewed as a mechanism design problem under the aegis of an uninformed mediator. This paper focuses on institutional contexts without such mediator. Contributors privately informed on their willingness to pay...

Costly delay in negotiations can induce the negotiating parties to be more forthcoming with their information and improve the quality of the collective decision. Imposing a deadline may result in stalling, in which players at some point stop making concessions but switch back to conceding at the...

A committee decides by unanimity whether to accept the current alternative, or to continue costly search. Each alternative is described by a vector of distinct attributes, and each committee member can privately assess the quality of one attribute (her "specialty"). Preferences are heterogeneous...

A speaker attempts to persuade a listener to accept a request by presenting evidence. A persuasion rule specifies what evidence is persuasive. This paper compares static and dynamic rules. We present a single linear program (i) whose solution corresponds to the listener's optimal dynamic rule...

A two-person infinite-horizon bargaining model where one of the players may have either of two discount factors, has a multiplicity of perfect Bayesian equilibria. Introducing the slightest possibility that either player may be one of a rich variety of stationary behavioral types singles out a...

It is well-known that the ability of the Vickrey-Clarke-Groves (VCG) mechanism to implement efficient outcomes for private value choice problems does not extend to interdependent value problems. When an agent's type affects other agents' utilities, it may not be incentive compatible for him to...

We study centralized many-to-many matching in markets where agents have private information about (vertical) characteristics that determine match values. Our analysis reveals how matching patterns reflect cross-subsidization between sides. Agents are endogenously partitioned into consumers and...

Within a framework of debt renegotiation and a priori private information, what is the role of outside and inside collateral? The literature shows that unobservability of the project’s returns implies that the high-risk borrower is more inclined to pledge outside collateral than is the...

We study a double auction environment where buyers and sellers have interdependent valuations and multi-unit demand and supply. We propose a new mechanism that satisfies ex post incentive compatibility, individual rationality, feasibility, nonwastefulness, and no budget deficit. Moreover, this...