We study optimal auctions in a symmetric private values setting, where bidders have signaling concerns: they care about winning the object and a receivers inference about their type. Signaling concerns arise in various economic situations such as takeover bidding, charity auctions, procurement...

The seller of N distinct objects is uncertain about the buyer's valuation for those objects. The seller's problem, to maximize expected revenue, consists of maximizing a linear functional over a convex set of mechanisms. A solution to the seller's problem can always be found in an extreme point...

We study optimal auctions in a symmetric private values setting, where bidders' care about winning the object and a receiver's inference about their type. We reestablish revenue equivalence when bidders' signaling concerns are linear, and the auction makes participation observable via an entry...

Due to the well-known efficiency--rent extraction trade-off, the optimal mechanism in a pure screening environment (e.g., revenue maximization in auctions or cost minimization in procurement) typically calls for distortions in allocative efficiency when agents possess private information at the...

We present a common value mechanism design model for an informed principal where only the principal has private information, but her one-dimensional private information is allowed to be distributed according to any probability measure. For this model we characterize the set of pure-strategy...

We develop a model of consulting (advising) where the role of the consultant is that she can reveal signals to her client which refine the client’s original private estimate of the profitability of a project. Importantly, only the client can observe or evaluate these signals, the consultant...

We consider a model of oligopolistic firms that have private information about their cost structure. Prior to competing in the market a competitive advantage, i.e., a cost reducing technology, is allocated to a subset of the firms by means of a multi-object auction. After the auction either all...

This paper analyzes the signaling effect of bidding in a two-round elimination contest. Before the final round, bids in the preliminary round are revealed and act as signals of the contestants' private valuations. Depending on his valuation, a contestant may have an incentive to bluff or sandbag...

We consider a model of oligopolistic firms that have private information about their cost structure. Prior to competing in the market a competitive advantage, i.e., a cost reducing technology, is allocated to a subset of the firms by means of a multi-object auction. After the auction either all...

In many auctions, matching between the bidder and seller raises the value of the contract for both parties. However, information about the quality of the match may be incomplete. We consider the case in which each bidder observes the quality of his match with the seller but the seller does not...