We give a sufficient condition on the type space for revenue equivalence when the set of social alternatives consists of probability distributions over a finite set. Types are identified with real-valued functions that assign valuations to elements of this finite set, and the type space is...

This paper studies a model of mechanism design with transfers where agents' preferences need not be quasilinear. In such a model, (1) we characterize dominant strategy incentive compatible mechanisms using a monotonicity property; (2) we establish a revenue uniqueness result: for every dominant...

This paper studies a model of mechanism design with transfers where agents' preferences need not be quasilinear. In such a model, (1) we characterize dominant strategy incentive compatible mechanisms using a monotonicity property; (2) we establish a revenue uniqueness result: for every dominant...

This paper explores the sale of an object to an ambiguity averse buyer. We show that the seller can increase his profit by using an ambiguous mechanism. That is, the seller can benefit from hiding certain features of the mechanism that he has committed to from the agent. We then characterize the...

We study optimal selling strategies of a seller who is poorly informed about the buyer’s value for the object. When the maxmin seller only knows that the mean of the distribution of the buyer's valuations belongs to some interval then nature can keep him to payoff zero no matter how much...

We characterize revenue maximizing mechanisms in a common value environment where the value of the object is equal to the highest of bidders' independent signals. The optimal mechanism exhibits either neutral selection, wherein the object is randomly allocated at a price that all bidders are...

We characterize revenue maximizing mechanisms in a common value environment where the value of the object is equal to the highest of bidders’ independent signals. If the object is optimally sold with probability one, then the optimal mechanism is simply a posted price, with the highest...

We study optimal auctions in a symmetric private values setting, where bidders have signaling concerns: they care about winning the object and a receivers inference about their type. Signaling concerns arise in various economic situations such as takeover bidding, charity auctions, procurement...

It is well-known that the ability of the Vickrey-Clarke-Groves (VCG) mechanism to implement efficient outcomes for private value choice problems does not extend to interdependent value problems. When an agent's type affects other agents' utilities, it may not be incentive compatible for him to...

We introduce a general class of simplicity standards that vary the foresight abilities required of agents in extensive-form games. Rather than planning for the entire future of a game, agents are presumed to be able to plan only for those histories they view as simple from their current...