Fears of pricing troubled assets have needlessly stalled the rescue effort, according to Lawrence Ausubel and Peter Cramton, two market-design economists whose work on TARP has received the attention of the Treasury and policy makers.

The details of the auction design could make or break the Treasury's plan to invest $700 billion in mortgage-related securities to resolve the financial crisis, using market mechanisms such as reverse auctions to determine prices, according to Lawrence M. Ausubel and Peter Cramton.

A family of ascending package auction models is introduced in which bidders may determine their own packages on which to bid. In the proxy auction (revelation game) versions, the outcome is a point in the core of the exchange economy for the reported preferences. When payoffs are linear in money...

A family of ascending package auction models is introduced in which bidders may determine their own packages on which to bid. In the proxy auction (revelation game) versions, the outcome is a point in the core of the exchange economy for the reported preferences. When payoffs are linear in money...

Healthcare costs are no doubt too high, and Congress has been pushing for 13 years to harness market forces in Medicare procurement. But despite all this time, we are on the precipice of adopting a very poor market design according to Peter Cramton of University of Maryland and Brett Katzman of...

Peter Cramton and Brett Katzman stick to their guns: Medicare auctions remain fatally flawed and must be fixed. They argue that contrary to Hoerger's comment, no comfort can be drawn from the fact that the market was able to withstand price reductions in early pilots.

Global cap and trade equalizes the price of emissions and leads to efficient abatement across countries, but sets the abatement level inefficiently low. It is set too low, because the global cap is the sum of individual country targets set on the basis of self-interest. The efficiency of a...

This paper describes the bid signaling that occurred in many of the FCC spectrum auctions. Bidders in these auctions bid on numerous spectrum licenses simultaneously, with bidding remaining open on all licenses until no bidder is willing to raise the bid on any license. Simultaneous open bidding...

This paper describes the bid signaling that occurred in many of the FCC spectrum auctions. Bidders in these auctions bid on numerous spectrum licenses simultaneously, with bidding remaining open on all licenses until no bidder is willing to raise the bid on any license. Simultaneous open bidding...

At the international level, a global carbon price is a better form of commitment to reduce carbon emissions than a system of national caps. Peter Cramton and Steven Stoft outline a price-based approach that is simple, effective, and remarkably affordable.