We show that, in environments with independent private values and transferable utility, a privately informed principal can implement a contract that is ex-ante optimal for her. As an application, we consider a bilateral exchange environment (Myerson and Satterthwaite, 1983) in which the...

In standard auctions resale creates a role for a speculator-a bidder who is commonly known to have no use value for the good on sale. We study this issue in environments with symmetric independent private-value bidders. For second-price and English auctions the efficient value-bidding...

We provide a solution to the informed-principal problem in the independent private values setting with monetary transfers. The principal's private information creates signaling considerations that may distort the implemented allocation. We show that there is no distortion: all principal types...