Asymmetric information is a classic example of market failure that undermines the efficiency associated with perfectly competitive market outcomes: the “lemons” market. Credible certification, that substantiates unobservable characteristics of products that consumers value, is often...

We examine the welfare costs of informed trade in a new sequential trade model with elastic uninformed traders. Welfare losses occur when the liquidity costs of executing a trade exceed the potential gains from the trade. With long-lived private information, more informed traders lead to better...

In a market with a safe rate and a risky asset that pays a continuous dividend stream depending on a latent state of the economy, several agents make consumption and investment decisions based on public information — prices and dividends — and private signals. We obtain the equilibrium in...

This paper studies the impact of third-party information designers on bilateral trade. The seller sets the price of a product and makes a take-it-or-leave-it o er to the buyer. An information designer, who maximizes a weighted social welfare, observes the seller's pricing strategy and designs...