We develop general recursive methods to solve for optimal contracts in dynamic principal-agent environments with hidden states and hidden actions. In our baseline model, the principal observes nothing other than transfers. Nevertheless, optimal incentive-constrained insurance can be attained. We...

We analyze the performance of various communication protocols in a generalization of the Crawford-Sobel (1982) model of cheap talk that allows for multiple receivers. We find that whenever the sender can communicate informatively with both receivers by sending private messages, she can...

In a range of settings, private firms manage peer effects by sorting agents into different groups, be they schools, communities, or product categories. This paper considers such a firm, which controls group entry by setting a series of anonymous prices. We show that private provision...

We study a problem of optimal auction design in the realistic case in which the players can collude both on the way they play in the auction and on their participation decisions. Despite the fact that the principal's opportunities for extracting payments from the agents in such a situation are...

In a general interdependent preference environment, we characterize when two payoff types can be distinguished by their rationalizable strategic choices without any prior knowledge of their beliefs and higher order beliefs. We show that two payoff types are strategically distinguishable if and...

We analyse the optimal delegation of decision rights by a uninformed principal to an informed but biased agent. When the principal cannot use message-contingent transfers, she offers the agent a set of decisions from which he can choose his preferred one. We fully characterize the optimal...

We consider Bayesian incentive compatible and individually rational mechanisms for resolving conflicts between two agents who are uncertain about each other's fighting potential. We model the default option of outright conflict as a probabilistic contest. Examples of such contests may be...

Myerson and Satterthwaite (1983) prove that if one seller and one buyer have independent private valuations for an indivisible object then no individually rational and incentive compatible trading mechanism can guarantee ex post efficiency when gains from trade are uncertain. Makowski and...

This paper provides a limit result for the provision of a public good in a mechanism design framework as the number of agents gets large. A canonical example for a public good that is produced with a direct provision technology is Open Source Software.

A principal contracts with a productive agent whose production cost is private information and with an insurer who can insure the principal against variations in the payment to the agent. The insurer and the agent can collude in their responses to the principal's contract. Non-cooperative play...