This paper shows that, under fairly general conditions, lending to small countries must be supported by the direct sanctions available to creditors and cannot be supported by a country's "reputation for repayment." This distinction is critically important for understanding the true underlying...

Which is the more profitable way to sell a company: an auction with no reserve price or an optimally structured negotiation with one less bidder? The authors show, under reasonable assumptions, that the auction is always preferable when bidders' signals are independent. For affiliated signals,...

We develop a model in which firms set impersonal salary levels before matching with workers. Wages fall relative to any competitive equilibrium while profits rise almost as much, implying little inefficiency. Furthermore, the best firms gain the most from the system while wages become...

The authors model a war of attrition with N+K firms competing for N prizes. In a 'natural oligopoly' context, the K - 1 lowest-value firms drop out instantaneously, even though each firm's value is private information to itself. In a 'standard setting' context, in which every competitor suffers...

We compare the most common methods for selling a company or other asset when participation is costly: a simple simultaneous auction, and a sequential process in which potential buyers decide in turn whether to enter the bidding. The sequential process is always more efficient. But preemptive...

Political business cycle theories generally rely on nominal rigidities and voter myopia. This paper offers an equilibrium theory that preserves some basic insights from earlier models, though with significant refinements. The "political budget cycle" emphasized here is in fiscal policy rather...