This dissertation uses game theoretic models to examine the effects of agent anonymity on markets for goods and for information. In open, anonymous settings, such as the Internet, anonymity is relatively easy to obtain --- oftentimes another email address is sufficient. By becoming anonymous,...

Auctions are an ancient economic institution. Since Vickrey (1961), the development of auction theory has lead to an extremely detailed description of the often desirable characteristics of these simple selling procedures, in the process explaining their enduring popularity. Given the...

Two policy goals dominate United States' agricultural programs: voluntary land retirement for environmental purposes and countercyclical income support. Traditionally, these goals have been pursued with separate policies. This policy separation is efficient with perfect information regarding...

Chapter 1: Efficient Design of an Auction with Discrete Bid Levels This paper studies one of auction design issues: the choice of bid levels. Full efficiency is generally unachievable with a discrete auction. Since there may be more than one bidder who submits the same bid, the auction cannot...

With the emergence of the Internet as a global structure for communication and interaction,many “business to consumer” and “business to business” applications have migrated online,thus increasing the need for software agents that can act on behalf of people, institutions orcompanies with...

Certifiers have a crucial role in facilitating effective communication in the online and the traditional world. As a way of generating statistically meaningful information, certification has been adopted in financial statements evaluation and more recently in various online communities as well....

Well-defined interfaces and standardization allow for the composition of single Web services into value-added complex services. Such complex Web Services are increasingly traded via agile marketplaces, facilitating flexible recombination of service modules to meet heterogeneous customer demands....

The fundamental paradigm shift from traditional value chains to agile service value networks (SVN) implies new economic and organizational challenges. This work provides an auction-based coordination mechanism that enables the allocation and pricing of service compositions in SVNs. The mechanism...

University of Minnesota Ph.D. dissertation. June 2009. Major: Business Administration. Advisors: Alok Gupta, Gediminas Adomavicius. 1 computer fie (PDF); ix, 134 pages, appendices 1-4. Ill. (some col.)