Evidence suggests little informed giving. To understand this behavior, we examine voluntary provision of a discrete public good with independent private values that can be ascertained at a cost. We find that an individual who considers a smaller contribution is less likely to learn her value,...

The preference between public and private negotiations for a buyer who sequentially visits two sellers is examined. It is shown that the buyer (weakly) prefers private negotiations so as to create strategic uncertainty about the trade history. With substitute goods, such uncertainty is valuable...

This paper investigates the sequencing choice of a buyer who negotiates with the sellers of two complementary objects with uncertain payoffs. We show that the sequencing matters to the buyer only when equilibrium trade can be inefficient. In this case, the buyer begins with the less powerful...

Evidence suggests that donors have little demand for information before giving to charity. To understand this behavior and its policy implications, we present a model in which each individual can acquire costly information about her true value of charity. We observe that an individual who...

Evidence suggests little informed giving. To understand this behavior, we examine voluntary provision of a discrete public good with independent private values that can be ascertained at a cost. We find that an individual who considers a smaller contribution is less likely to learn her value,...

We model an employee's decision to pursue an innovative idea at his employing firm (internally) or as a start-up (externally). We characterize an idea by its market profitability and the degree of positive/negative externality that it imposes on the employing firm's profits. The innovation...

We characterize equilibria of games with two properties: (i) Agents have the opportunity to adjust their strategic variable after their initial choices and before payoffs occur; but (ii) they can only add to their initial amounts. The equilibrium set consists of just the Cournot-Nash outcome,...

This paper examines the use of switching costs by long lived strategic buyers to manage dynamic competition between rival suppliers. The analysis reveals how buyers may employ switching costs to their advantage. We show, ironically, when switching costs are high a buyer may induce suppliers to...