The dynamics of a stochastic, two-period principal-agent relationship is studied. The agent's type remains the same over time. Contracts are short term. The principal designs the second contract, taking the information available about the agent after the first period into account. Compared to...

Preliminary injunctions (PIs) are important in litigation in many settings, including antitrust, copyright, patent, trademark, employment and labor relations, and contracts. The filing of a PI and the court's ruling generate information that can impact settlement. We find that some plaintiffs...

We contrast a standard deterministic signaling game with one where the signal-generating mechanism is stochastic. With stochastic signals a unique equilibrium emerges that involves separation and has intuitive comparative-static properties as the degree of signaling depends on the prior type...

In a recurring auction early bids may reveal bidders' types, which in turn affects bidding in later auctions. Bidders take this into account and may bid in a way that conceals their private information until the last auction is played. The present paper analyzes the equilibrium of a sequence of...

We study firms' incentives to acquire private information in a setting where subsequent competition leads to firms' later signaling their private information to rivals. Due to signaling, equilibrium prices are distorted, and so while firms benefit from obtaining more precise private information,...