This paper considers all-pay contests in which the relationship between bids and allocation reflects a small amount of noise. Prior work had focused on one particular equilibrium. However, there may be other equilibria. To address this issue, we introduce a new and intuitive measure for the...

We characterize revenue maximizing mechanisms in a common value environment where the value of the object is equal to the highest of bidders’ independent signals. If the object is optimally sold with probability one, then the optimal mechanism is simply a posted price, with the highest...

We study optimal auctions in a symmetric private values setting, where bidders' care about winning the object and a receiver's inference about their type. We reestablish revenue equivalence when bidders' signaling concerns are linear, and the auction makes participation observable via an entry...

This paper considers all-pay contests in which the relationship between bids and allocations reflects a small amount of noise. Prior work had focused on one particular equilibrium. However, there may be other equilibria. To address this issue, we introduce a new and intuitive measure for the...

We characterize revenue maximizing mechanisms in a common value environment where the value of the object is equal to the highest of bidders' independent signals. The optimal mechanism exhibits either neutral selection, wherein the object is randomly allocated at a price that all bidders are...

We test the assumption that preferences are unchanged throughout a strategic game in the absence of feedback. To do so, we study the relationship between the strategic nature of a game and players' identification in social groups. We present evidence that the strategic nature of the game affects...

In economics, the standard approach to language is that talk is cheap. Here, instead, language is a social convention that affects utility. Unless language is used in its ordinary sense, it cannot help to coordinate actions because there is no way of decoding it. This points to a unique...