Many sales, sports, and research contests are put in place to maximize contestants’ performance. We investigate and provide a complete characterization of the prize structures that achieve this objective in settings with many contestants. The contestants may be ex-ante asymmetric in their...

In liability lawsuits (e.g. patent infringement) a plaintiff demands compensation from a defendant and the parties often negotiate a settlement to avoid a costly trial. Liability insurance creates bargaining leverage for the defendant in this settlement negotiation. We study the characteristics...

This paper proposes a tractable model of a dynamic contest where players have private information about the contest's prize. We show that private information helps to encourage players who have fallen behind, leading to an increase in aggregate incentives. We derive the optimal information...

We study signaling in dynamic contests with heterogeneous players. A privately-informed challenger faces a sequence of rivals of known types. The type of future rivals determines which signal the challenger wants to produce, whereas the strategic response of current rivals determines the extent...

A characteristic of many information markets is that consumers can cross-check information, i.e. observe several information sources. To explore this we build a model of market for information where information outlets can only report a coarse signal and face a distribution of consumers with...

This paper compares the welfare effects of three ways in which health care can be organized: no competition (NC), competition for the market (CfM) and competition on the market (CoM) where the payer offers the optimal contract to providers in each case. We argue that each of these can be optimal...

In many markets, sellers advertise their good with an asking price. This is a price at which the seller is willing to take his good off the market and trade immediately, though it is understood that a buyer can submit an offer below the asking price and that this offer may be accepted if the...

In many markets, sellers advertise their good with an asking price. This is a price at which the seller is willing to take his good off the market and trade immediately, though it is understood that a buyer can submit an offer below the asking price and that this offer may be accepted if the...

In many markets, sellers advertise their good with an asking price. This is a price at which the seller is willing to take his good off the market and trade immediately, though it is understood that a buyer can submit an offer below the asking price and that this offer may be accepted if the...

In many markets, sellers advertise their good with an asking price. This is a price at which the seller will take his good off the market and trade immediately, though it is understood that a buyer can submit an offer below the asking price and that this offer may be accepted if the seller...