We study the problem of a regulator who must control the emissions of a given pollutant from a series of industries when the firms' abatement costs are unknown. We develop a mechanism in which the regulator asks firms to report their abatement costs and implements the most stringent emissions...

How does the informational role of interest groups interact with institutions in the political control of the bureaucracy? In 1992, Banks and Weingast argued that bureaucrats hold an informational advantage vis-a-vis political principals concerning variables with direct policy relevance, and...

Under what circumstances does corruption cause inefficiencies, and when are bribes merely a transfer? I propose a modified monopoly price discrimination model showing how corruption may lead to an increased administrative burden in firm-government interactions. The model highlights the...

Whistle-blowing is usually regarded as a way to identify abuse and wrongdoing on the part of governments and corporations. In this paper we show how, at a micro level, whistle-blowing can be used as a designer tool to prevent opportunistic behavior, that takes the form of collusion or blackmail,...

I study a model of procurement with moral hazard and adverse selection. The procurer is either corrupt or honest and can choose between sole-sourcing and competitive tender. I compare two procurement regulations: no sole-sourcing is allowed (rigid regulation) and sole-sourcing is allowed in an...

Whistle-blowing is usually regarded as a way to identify abuse and wrongdoing on the part of governments and corporations. In this paper we show how, at a micro level, whistle-blowing can be used as a designer tool to prevent opportunistic behavior, that takes the form of collusion or blackmail,...

I compare certification and self-regulation, two widely used quality assurance mechanisms in markets where consumers do not observe the quality of goods. Certification is a mechanism in which an external firm offers a certificate to producers who undergo a testing procedure, issues the...

Having a formal understanding of what various institutions represent should be important. There are few economic variables which can accumulate over time (and give us what i call as "state utility"). All these institutions, like education, health, social (like caste system, dowry etc.), do is...

The problem of optimally designing information for multiple agents who interact in a game can be formulated as a linear program. We explore its dual representation and show that it provides a novel perspective and new economic insights into the information-design problem. Through the lens of the...

Mediator proposals can accelerate agreement and increase welfare even if the mediator is entirely uninformed. We demonstrate this by adding random mediation to the Cramton (1992) bargaining model. Mediation increases welfare by pooling types, which reduces signaling costs. When mediation is...