This paper studies mechanisms for allocating rights to forge new blocks on a blockchain. The proof of work contest (PoW) where all block generators, or miners, compete for finding the next block is characterized. The central feature of the PoW contest is that no miner has an incentive to...

In an auction with a buy price, a seller offers bidders the opportunity to forgo competing in an auction by transacting immediately at a pre-specified fixed price. If a seller has aspirations in the form of a reference price that depends upon the auction's reserve price and buy price, she does...

In an auction with a buy price, a seller offers bidders the opportunity to forgo competing in an auction by transacting immediately at a pre-specified fixed price. If a seller has aspirations in the form of a reference price that depends upon the auction's reserve price and buy price, she does...

In an auction with a buy price, the seller provides bidders with an option to end the auction early by accepting a transaction at a posted price. The "Buy-It-Now" option on eBay is a leading example of an auction with a buy price. This paper develops a model of an auction with a buy price in...

Consumer auctions were very popular in the early days of internet commerce, but today online sellers mostly use posted prices. Data from eBay shows that compositional shifts in the items being sold, or the sellers offering these items, cannot account for this evolution. Instead, the returns to...

We develop an empirical methodology to study markets for services. These markets are typically organized as multi-attribute auctions in which buyers take into account seller's price as well as various characteristics, including quality. Our identification and estimation strategies exploit...

Sponsored search advertising is ascendant---Jupiter Research reports expenditures rose 28% in 2007 to $8.9B and will continue to rise at a 15% CAGR, making it one of the major trends to affect the marketing landscape. Yet little, if any empirical research focuses upon search engine marketing...

Exchange between anonymous actors in Internet auctions corresponds to a one-shot prisoner's dilemma-like situation. Therefore, in any given auction the risk is high that seller and buyer will cheat and, as a consequence, that the market will collapse. However, mutual cooperation can be attained...

In an auction with a buy price, the seller provides bidders with an option to end the auction early by accepting a transaction at a posted price. The Buy-It-Now option on eBay is a leading example of an auction with a buy price. This paper develops a model of an auction with a buy price in which...

Do bidders behave as auction theory predicts they should? How do bidders (and thus, prices) react to different types of information? This paper derives implications of auction theory with respect to the dispersion of private information signals in an auction. I conduct a survey of non-bidders to...