When current employers have more information about worker quality than do potential employers, sectoral shocks cause structural unemployment. That is, some workers laid off from an injured sector remain unemployed despite the fact that they are of sufficient quality to be productively employed...

Limited commitment causes inefficient production and source selecti on in a multistage procurement process wherein the contractor has privat e information about uncertain costs. A contractor's limited liability l eads a monopsonist to rely more on quantity distortions to extract rents. Moreover,...

Backward vertical integration by a dominant firm into an upstream competitive industry causes both input and output prices to rise. The dominant firm's advantage may or may not offset the negative effect of higher prices on social welfare. Whether it does depends on a simple indicator derived...

High and declining prices signal a high-quality product. High prices are the efficient means of signaling, because the consequent loss of sales volume is most damaging for lower-cost, lower-quality products. As time passes and the number of informed consumers increases, the signaling distortion...

The authors analyze how to award a monopoly franchise when the objective is to maximize expected consumers' surplus net of transfer payments to the producer. Potential producers initially possess independent private information about uncertain production costs. Only the chosen producer...