Car owners are liable for property damage inflicted on other motorists. In most countries such liability must be insured by law. That law may favor expensive or heavy vehicles, prone to suffer or inflict large losses. This paper explores links between liability rules and vehicle choice. It...

We consider a licensing mechanism for process innovations that combines a license auction with royalty contracts to those who lose the auction. Firms' bids are dual signals of their cost reductions: the winning bid signals the own cost reduction to rival oligopolists, whereas the losing bid...

This paper reconsiders the licensing of a common value innovation to a downstream duopoly, assuming a dual licensing scheme that combines a first-price license auction with royalty contracts for losers. Prior to bidding firms observe imperfect signals of the expected cost reduction; after the...

Inspired by some spectrum auctions, we consider a stylized license auction with incumbents and one entrant. Whereas the entrant values only the bundle of several units (synergy), incumbents are subject to non-increasing demand. The seller proactively encourages entry and restricts incumbent...

In many auctions, the auctioneer is an agent of the seller. This invites corruption. We propose a model of corruption in which the auctioneer orchestrates bid rigging by inviting a bidder to either lower or raise his bid, whichever is more profitable. We characterize equilibriumbidding in first-...

This paper reconsiders experimental tests of the English clock auction. We point out why the standard procedure can only use a small subset of all bids, which gives rise to a selection bias. We propose an alternative yet equivalent format that makes all bids visible, and apply it to a 'wallet...

This paper revisits the standard analysis of licensing a cost reducing innovation by an outside innovator to a Cournot oligopoly. We propose a new mechanism that combines elements of a license auction with royalty licensing by granting the losers of the auction the option to sign a royalty...

This paper reconsiders the explanation of R&D subsidies by Spencer and Brander (1983) and others by allowing firms to license their innovations and to pool their R&D investments. We show that in equilibrium R&D joint ventures are formed and licensing occurs in a way that eliminates the strategic...

The literature on license auctions for process innovations in oligopoly assumed that the auctioneer reveals the winning bid and stressed that this gives firms an incentive to signal strength through their bids, to the benefit of the innovator. In the present paper we examine whether revealing...