Social sharing of information goods--wherein a single good is purchased and shared through a network of acquaintances such as friends or coworkers--is a significant concern for the providers of these goods. The effect of social sharing on firm pricing and profits depends critically on two...

We examine theoretically and experimentally two countervailing effects of collusion and symmetric mergers among bidders. On one hand, the pooling of information within bidding rings increases the precision of competing estimates. We demonstrate that, in average value auctions, this leads to more...

We consider how information concentration affects a seller's revenue in common value auctions. The common value is a function of n random variables partitioned among m = n bidders. For each partition, the seller devises an optimal mechanism. We show that, whenever the value function allows...

I consider several variants of dictator and ultimatum games in which the proposer not only offers an allocation of funds but also selects the rules that will govern that distribution. In the dictator/ultimatum choice game, the proposer first selects whether or not the receiver will have the...

Previous studies have demonstrated that a multitude of options can lead to choice overload, reducing decision quality. Through controlled experiments, we examine sequential choice architectures that enable the choice set to remain large while potentially reducing the effect of choice overload. A...

Individuals bring effort to a group to achieve a common objective. Group membership introduces a free-riding incentive, reducing effort, as well as a sense of social responsibility, increasing effort. We show experimentally that the free-riding effect is stronger. Group members significantly...

A firm may strategically decrease capacity to gain bargaining power over its suppliers. Equilibrium models of competition imply that the incentive to reduce capacity to gain buyer power is small because the buyer captures all available surplus by excluding even a single supplier. However, these...

We analyze theoretically and empirically the effect of preference policies, which favor some auditors over others for reasons unrelated to the audit. For example, an auditee may prefer minority-owned auditors, all else equal. We construct an analytical model of the competitive bidding process...