We investigate the issue of implementation via individually rational ex-post budget-balanced Bayesian mechanisms. We show that all decision rules generating a nonnegative expected social surplus are implementable if and only if the probability distribution of the agents' types satisfies two...

We study a multi-unit auction environment similar to eBay. Sellers, each with a single unit of a homogenous good, set reserve prices at their own independent second-price auctions. Each buyer has a private value for the good and wishes to acquire a single unit. Buyers can bid as often as they...

I investigate the issue of endogenous spillover of R&D information across firms through information exchange between their employees. Although the firms typically cannot observe and restrict communication between their employees in a direct way, they can regulate information flows through the...

This paper focuses on implementation issues in environments where it may be costly for the players to send certain messages. We develop an approach allowing to characterize the set of implementable outcomes in such environments, and then apply it to derive optimal mechanisms. The key elements of...

In this paper we study "investment tournaments," a class of decision problems that involve gradual allocation of investment among several alternatives whose values are subject to exogenous shocks. The decision-maker's payoff is determined by the final values of the alternatives. An important...

In the United States, more than two-thirds of decedents with multichild families divide their estates exactly equally among their children. In contrast, intra vivos gifts are usually unequal. These findings challenge the validity of existing theories regarding the determination of...

We examine the optimal selling strategy of a monopolist facing consumers who have privately known demands, and some of whom have limited abilities to misrepresent their preferences. We derive the optimal mechanism in this environment and characterize its properties. In particular, we show that...

In the United States, more than two-thirds of decedents with multichild families divide their estates exactly equally among their children. In contrast, gifts given before death are usually unequal. These findings challenge the validity of existing theories regarding the determination of...