This paper studies markets for heterogeneous goods using mechanism-design theory. For each combination of desirable properties, I derive an assignment process with these properties in the form of a corresponding direct-revelation game, or I show that it does not exist. Each participant's utility...

Howard (1992) argues that the Nash bargaining solution is not Nash implementable, as it does not satisfy Maskin monotonicity. His arguments can be extended to other bargaining solutions as well. However, by defining a social choice correspondence that is based on the solution rather than on its...

Even though kidney exchange became an important source of kidney transplants over the last decade with the introduction of market design techniques to organ transplantation, the shortage of kidneys for transplantation is greater than ever. Due to biological disadvantages, patient populations of...

A new mechanism was introduced in New York City and Boston to assign students to public schools. This mechanism was advocated for its superior fairness property, besides others. We introduce a new framework for school-choice problems and two notions of fairness in lottery design based on ex-ante...

Agents are farsighted when they consider the ultimate results to which their own actions may lead to. We re-examine the classical questions of implementation theory under complete information in a setting with transfers where farsighted coalitions are regarded as fundamental behavioral units and...

The endowment and attachment effect are empirically well-documented in bilateral trade situations. Yet, the theoretical literature has so far failed to formally identify these effects. We fill this gap by introducing expectations-based loss aversion, which can explain both effects, into the...

The endowment and attachment effect are empirically well-documented in bilateral trade situations. Yet, the theoretical literature has so far failed to formally identify these effects. We fill this gap by introducing expectations-based loss aversion, which can explain both effects, into the...

Unsophisticated applicants can be at a disadvantage under manipulable and hence strategically demanding school choice mechanisms. Disclosing information on applications in previous admission periods makes it easier to asses the chances of being admitted at a particular school, and hence may...

We take school admission mechanisms to the lab to test whether the widely-used manipulable Boston-mechanism disadvantages students of lower cognitive ability and whether this leads to ability segregation across schools. Results show this is the case: lower ability participants receive lower...

We show that Ergin & Sönmez's (2006) results which show that for schools it is a dominant strategy to truthfully rank the students under the Boston mechanism, and that the Nash equilibrium outcomes in undominated strategies of the induced game are stable, rely crucially on two assumptions....