If A is a set of social alternatives, a social choice rule (SCR) assigns a subset of A to each potential profile of individuals' preferences over A, where the subset is interpreted as the set of "welfare optima". A game form (or "mechanism") implements the social choice rule if, for any...

The authors exhibit an efficient auction (i.e., an auction that maximizes expected surplus conditional on all private and public information). In the case of private value, it is well-known that the Vickrey auction (for one good) or its Groves-Clark extension (for multiple goods) is efficient in...

The paper characterises the choice rules that can be implemented when agents are unable to commit themselves not to renegotiate the mechanism.

This paper discusses some of the attempts economists have made in the last ten years or so to integrate norms into the theory of the firm. The paper argues that (a) although norms are undoubtedly very important both inside and between firms, incorporating them into the theory has been very...

This paper discusses how economists’ views of firms’ financial structure decisions have evolved from treating firms’ profitability as given; to acknowledging that managerial actions affect profitability; to recognizing that firm value depends on the allocation of decision or control...

We are concerned with the design of a constitution for a firm an ex ante contract which assigns residual rights of control (and possibly residual Income rights) without reference to the issue to be decided. We focus attention on two polar constitutions: nonprofit cooperatives and outside...

We view a contract as a list of outcomes. Ex ante, the parties commit not to consider outcomes not on the list, i. e. , these are “ruled out”. Ex post, they freely bargain over outcomes on the list, i. e. , the contract specifies no mechanism to structure their choice; in this sense outcomes...