We study relative performance of stochastic and deterministic mechanisms in a principal-agent model with hidden information and no monetary transfers. We present an example in which stochastic mechanisms perform strictly better than deterministic ones and can implement any outcome arbitrarily...

"This paper derives an intertemporal optimality condition for economies with private information, focusing on a class of recursive preferences. By comparing it to the situation where agents can freely save in a risk-free asset market, we derive the optimal savings distortions necessary for...

We consider a two good world where an individual i with income mi has utility function u (x, y), where x ? [0, ?) and y ? {0, 1}. We first derive the valuation (maximum price that he is willing to pay for the object) for good y as a function of his income. Then we consider the following problem....