This paper examines the optimal mechanism design problem when buyers have uncertain valuations. This uncertainty can only be resolved after the actual transactions take place and upon incurring significant post-purchase cost. We focus on two different settings regarding how the seller values a...

We characterize the profit-maximizing mechanism for repeatedly selling a non-durable good in continuous time. The valuation of each agent is private information and changes over time. At the time of contracting every agent privately observes his initial type which influences the evolution of his...

We develop a model of data pricing and targeted advertising. A monopolistic data provider determines the price to access "cookies," i.e., informative signals about individual consumers' preferences. The demand for information is generated by advertisers who seek to tailor their spending to the...

Private provision of public goods often takes place as a war of attrition: individuals wait until someone else volunteers and provides the good. After a certain time period, however, one individual may be randomly selected. If the individuals are uncertain about their cost of provision, but can...

We develop a model with many heterogeneous advertisers (products) and advertising markets (media). Each advertiser has a different consumer segment for its product, and each medium has a different ability to target advertisement messages. We characterize the competitive equilibrium in the media...

The standard profit-maximizing multi-unit auction can be represented as the Vickrey-Groves-Clarke mechanism in which the seller manipulates his reservation supply curve. The optimal supply curve depends on the distribution from which the buyers' valuations are drawn. However, when this...

In this paper we consider the problem of efficiently allocating a given resource or object repeatedly over time. The agents, who may temporarily receive access to the resource, learn more about its value through its use. When the agents' beliefs about their valuations at any given time are...

We study a winner-take-all R&D race where firms are privately informed about the uncertain arrival rate of the invention. Due to the interdependent-value nature of the problem, the equilibrium displays a strong herding effect that distinguishes our framework from war-of-attrition models....

Signaling strategies which sellers of high quality securities, goods, or services employ to differentiate their securities or products from those of lower quality include: (1) developing a reputation for high quality, (2) certification by a respected third party (e.g., underwriters, bond rating...

Information plays a crucial role in mechanism design problems. A potential complication is that buyers may be inattentive, and so their information may endogenously and flexibly depend on the offered mechanism. I show that it is without loss of generality to consider contour mechanisms, which...