A principal faces an agent with private information who is either honest or dishonest. Honesty involves revealing private information truthfully if the probability that the equilibrium allocation chosen by an agent who lies is small enough. Even the slightest intolerance for lying prevents full...

Using the canonical principal-agent setting with adverse selection, we study the implications of honesty when it requires pre-commitment. Within a two-period hidden information problem, an agent learns his match with the assigned task in period 2 and, if honest, reveals it to the principal if he...

We analyze the effect of consumer information on firm pricing in a model where consumers search for prices and matches with products. We consider two types of consumers. Uninformed consumers do not know in advance their match values with firms, whereas informed consumers do. Prices are lower the...

We study price competition in the presence of search costs and product differentiation. The limit cases of the model are the "Bertrand Paradox," the "Diamond Paradox," and Chamberlinian monopolistic competition. Market prices rise with search costs and decrease with the number of firms. Prices...

We analyze a principal's ability to discriminate between honest and dishonest agents, who have private information about the circumstances of the exchange. Honest agents reveal circumstances truthfully as long as the mechanism is sufficiently fair: the probability that an equilibrium allocation...

This chapter proposes an analysis of the role of advertising in the transmission of information in markets. It also describes how the economic analysis of informative advertising provides a satisfactory account of advertising practices and discusses the extent to which resorting to alternative...

Empirical evidence suggests that most advertisements contain little direct information. Many do not mention prices. We analyze a monopoly firm's choice of advertising content and the information disclosed to consumers. The firm advertises only product information, price information, or both; and...