We characterize the optimal selling mechanism in a scenario where similar goods are sold to “high end” buyers through a posted price and to “lower end” buyers through an auction. We show that the optimal mechanism involves an auction which is a standard optimal auction (Myerson (1981))...

In the standard independent private values (IPV)model, each bidder’s beliefs about the values of any other bidder is represented by a unique prior. In this paper we relax this assumption and study the question of auction design in an IPV setting characterized by ambiguity: bidders have an...

Online auctions with a fixed end-time often experience a sharp increase in bidding towards the end despite using a proxy-bidding format. We provide a novel explanation of this phenomenon under private values. We study a correlated private values environment in which the seller bids in her own...

We study the question of auction design in an IPV setting characterized by ambiguity. We assume that the preferences of agents exhibit ambiguity aversion; in particular, they are represented by the epsilon-contamination model. We show that a simple variation of a discrete Dutch auction can...

In the standardindependentprivate values (IPV)model, each bidder’s beliefs about the values of any other bidder is represented by a unique prior. In this paper we relax this assumption and studythe question of auction design in an IPV setting characterizedby ambiguity: bidders have an...

We develop a theory of contracts with competing agencies under symmetric information and under moral hazard. In contrast to much of the literature, we allow the agencies to choose from a general contract space. Under the assumption of supermodularity, we show that in both cases the equilibria in...

This paper was presented at the conference "Financial services at the crossroads: capital regulation in the twenty-first century" as part of session 4, "Incentive-compatible regulations: views on the precommitment approach." The conference, held at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York on...

In 1997 the new Labour government launched major initiatives in the area of financial regulation, setting up the Financial Services Authority as a comprehensive regulatory body, supported by the legislative framework of the Financial Services and Markets Act 2000. We evaluate the Labour...