Using the concept of Inequity Aversion we derive in a Moral Hazard setting several results which differ from conventional contract theory. Our three key insights are: First, inequity aversion plays a crucial role in the design of optimal contracts. Second, there is a strong tendency towards...

During the recent sales of UMTS licenses in Europe some countries used auctions while others resorted to so-called Beauty Contests. There seems to be a wide consensus among economists that in these and other contexts like privatisation an auction is the better selling mechanism. However, why...

We study the impact of insurance on the amount of fraud in a physician-patient relationship. In a market for credence goods, where prices are regulated by an authority, physicians act as experts. Due to their informational advantage, physicians have an incentive to cheat by inducing...

We examine the strategic interaction in the market for physician services when the total budget for reimbursement is fixed. We show that this prospective payment system involves compared to a fee-for-service remuneration system a severe coordination problem, which potentially leads to the...

Liberalization of network industries frequently separates the network from the other parts of the industry. This is important in particular for the electricity industry where private firms invest into generation facilities, while network investments usually are controlled by regulators. We...

Liberalization of network industries frequently separates the network from the other parts of the industry. This is important in particular for the electricity industry where private firms invest into generation facilities, while net- work investments usually are controlled by regulators. We...

We propose a sequential auction mechanism for a single object in which the seller jointly determines the allocation and the disclosure policy. A sequential disclosure rule is shown to implement an ascending price auction in which each losing bidder learns his true valuation, but the winning...

Recently, the combinatorial clock auction has become more and more common in the auctioning of telecommunication licenses. Although the auction design is complex, the promise is that bidding becomes simple - truthtelling is close to optimal. We show that this claim is too strong. The auction...