This paper proposes a mechanism design approach, capable of endogenizing a monopolist's choice between selling and renting in a non-anonymous durable goods setting with short-term commitment. Allowing for mechanisms that determine the good’s allocation not only at the beginning but also at the...

We study a principal--agent model. The parties are symmetrically informed at first; the principal then designs the process by which the agent learns his type and, concurrently, the screening mechanism. Because the agent can opt out of the mechanism ex post, it must leave him with nonnegative...

This paper analyzes the optimal provision of incentives in a sequential testing context. In every period the agent can acquire costly information that is relevant to the principal's decision. Neither the agent's effort nor the realizations of his signals are observable. First, we assume that the...

We study full surplus extraction and implementation in dynamic environments. We exploit intertemporal correlations of agents' types to construct within-period ex post incentive compatible mechanisms. First, we formulate one-shot environments, in which a single agent has a hidden type and the...

In this paper, we examine the optimal mechanism design of selling an indivisible object to one regular buyer and one publicly known buyer, where inter-buyer resale cannot be prohibited. The resale market is modeled as a stochastic ultimatum bargaining game between the two buyers. We fully...

This paper analyzes the optimal provision of incentives in a dynamic information acquisition process. In every period, the agent can acquire costly information that is relevant to the principal's decision. Each signal may or may not provide definitive evidence in favor of the good state. Neither...

A budget-constrained buyer wants to purchase items from a short-listed set. Items are differentiated by observable quality and sellers have private reserve prices for their items. The buyer's problem is to select a subset of maximal quality. Money does not enter the buyer's objective function,...

A budget-constrained buyer wants to purchase items from a shortlisted set. Items are differentiated by observable quality and sellers have private reserve prices for their items. The buyer's problem is to select a subset of maximal quality. Money does not enter the buyer's objective function,...

The auction designer has one favorite among bidders and maximizes hisutility by choosing an auction plan, i.e., choosing the auction format conditionalon the favorite's value. I show that the designer can favor one of the bidderseven if favoritism within an auction is not allowed. In this case,...