We consider the design of an optimal voting system when voting is costly. For a private values model with two alternatives we show the optimality of a voting system that combines three elements: (i) there is an arbitrarily chosen default decision and non-participation is interpreted as a vote in...

The paper introduces a notion of complementarity (substitutability) of two signals which requires that in all decision problems each signal becomes more (less) valuable when the other signal becomes available. We provide a general characterization which relates com- plementarity and...

This paper presents a game theoretic analysis of the generalized second price auc- tion that the company Overture operated in 2004 to sell sponsored search listings on its search engine. We present results that indicate that this auction has a multi- plicity of Nash equilibria. We also show that...

In the first chapter, Legislative Bargaining and Coalition Formation, I analyze a widely used model of endogenous policy determination. The main question is if the stationary equilibrium, a popular equilibrium selection in applied work, can be rationalized as approximating the unique backwards...

We develop a model of trade between identical countries. Workers endogenously acquire skills that are imperfectly observed by firms, who therefore use aggregate country investment as the prior when evaluating workers. This creates an informational externality interacting with general equilibrium...