We study transactions that require investments before trading in a competitive market, when forward contracts fixing the transaction price are absent. We show that, despite the market being perfectly competitive and subject to arbitrarily little uncertainty, the inability to jointly determine...

Consider two agents who learn the value of an unknown parameter by observing a sequence of private signals. The signals are independent and identically distributed across time but not necessarily agents. Does it follow that the agents will commonly learn its value, i.e., that the true value of...

type="main" <p>We examine a repeated interaction between an agent who undertakes experiments and a principal who provides the requisite funding. A dynamic agency cost arises—the more lucrative the agent's stream of rents following a failure, the more costly are current incentives, giving the...</p>

We consider the problem of a monopolist who must sell her inventory before some deadline, facing buyers with independent private values. The seller faces a basic trade-off between imperfect price discrimination and maintaining an effective reserve price. When there is only one unit and only a...

We examine a repeated interaction between an agent, who undertakes experiments, and a principal who provides the requisite funding for these experiments. The repeated interaction gives rise to a dynamic agency cost—the more lucrative is the agent’s stream of future rents following a failure,...