We survey the recent European UMTS license auctions and compare their outcomes with the predictions of a simple model that emphasizes future market structure as a main determinant of valuations for licenses. Since the main goal of most spectrum allocation procedures is economic efficiency, and...

In our framework, when a buyer does not obtain the auctioned object, he is no longer indifferent about the identity of the winner (i.e., eyternal effects are present). Buyer i's preferences are characterized by an N-dimensional vector t^i = (t1^i, t2^i,..,tN^i). The coordinate ti^i can be...

We consider an auction with risk neutral agents having independent private valuations for several heterogenous objects. Most of the literature on revenue-maximizing auctions has focused on the sale of one good or on the sale of several identical units (thus yielding one-dimensional informational...

An indivisible good can be consumed by one of several agents. The consumption involves identity-dependent externalities to non-consumers. Resale markets for such goods are analyzed in various institutional settings where agents cannot commit to future actions. We address the following questions:...

We study the existence of efficient, Bayesian incentive compatible allocation procedures in a general setting with interdependent valuations. Possible applications include multi-object auctions and the provision of public goods. We emphasize the role of multidimensional signals, and, in view of...

We study efficient, Bayes-Nash incentive compatible mechanisms in a social choice setting that allows for informational and allocative externalities. We show that such mechanisms exist only if a congruence condition relating private and social rates of information substitution is satisfied. If...

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832), considered by some to be the greatest German writer, employed a number of sophisticated strategies in his dealings with publishers. None of them is as intriguing as the one appearing in Goethe's letter, dated January 16, 1797, to the publisher Vieweg...