The marginal cost of effort often increases as effort is exerted. In a dynamic moral hazard setting, dynamically increasing costs create information asymmetry. This paper characterizes the optimal contract and helps explain the popular yet thus far puzzling use of non-linear incentives, for...

The paper extends the optimal delegation framework pioneered by Holmström (1977, 1984) to a dynamic environment where, at the outset, the agent privately knows his ability to interpret decision relevant private information received later on. We show that any mechanism can be implemented by a...

I study the interaction between optimal procurement and outsourcing of production in small industries. First, two sellers decide about outsourcing. By outsourcing, a seller loses information about the costs of producing to his supplier. Then the buyer designs the procurement mechanism and...

We introduce ex post participation constraints in the standard sequential screening model. This captures the presence of consumer withdrawal rights as, for instance, mandated by EU regulation of "distance sales contracts". With such additional constraints, the optimal contract is static and,...

We analyze the optimal design of dynamic mechanisms in the absence of transfers. The designer uses future allocation decisions to elicit private information. Values evolve according to a two-state Markov chain. We solve for the optimal allocation rule, which permits a simple implementation....

We consider multiple-principal multiple-agent models of moral hazard: Principals compete through mechanisms in the presence of agents who take unobservable actions. In this context, we provide a rationale for restricting principals to make use of simple mechanisms, which correspond to direct...

Consider a mechanism design setting in which agents acquire costly information about an unknown, payoff-relevant state of nature. Information gathering is covert. We investigate conditions under which (i) efficient implementation and (ii) full surplus extraction are Bayesian incentive compatible...

We study the design of self-enforcing mechanisms that rely on neither a trusted third party (e.g., court, trusted mechanism designer) nor a long-term relationship. Instead, we use a smart contract written on blockchains as a commitment device. We design the digital court, a smart contract that...

We survey the recent literature on the role of information in mechanism design. First, we discuss an emerging literature on the role of endogenous payoff and strategic information for the design and the efficiency of the mechanism. We specifically consider information management in the form of...

This paper studies a model of mechanism design with transfers where agents' preferences need not be quasilinear. In such a model:(1) we characterize dominant strategy incentive compatible mechanisms using a monotonicity property; (2) we establish a revenue uniqueness result: for every dominant...