We analyse credit market equilibrium when banks screen loan applicants. When banks have a convex cost function of screening, a pure strategy equilibrium exists where banks optimally set interest rates at the same level as their competitors. This result complements Broecker’s (1990) analysis,...

We analyse credit market equilibrium when banks screen loan applicants. When banks have a convex cost function of screening, a pure strategy equilibrium exists where banks optimally set interest rates at the same level as their competitors. This result complements Broecker’s (1990)...

With existing technology, it is already possible for personal agents to schedule meetings for their users, to write the small print of an agreement, and for agents to search the Internet for the cheapest price. But serious negotiation cranks the difficulty of the problem up several notches. In...

We consider a dynamic model where traders in each period are matched randomly into pairs who then bargain about the division of a fixed surplus. When agreement is reached the traders leave the market. Traders who do not come to an agreement return next period in which they will be matched again,...

We consider the consequences of competition between two types of experimental exchange mechanisms, a “decentralized bargaining” market, and a “centralized” market. The experiment demonstrates that decentralized bargaining is subject to a process of unraveling in which relatively weak...

This paper presents a model of co-ordination failures based on market power and local oligopoly. The economy exhibits a multiplicity of Pareto-ranked equilibria. The introduction of uncertainty generates an endogenous equilibrium selection process, due to a strategic use of information by firms....

Despite the recent misfortunes of many dotcoms, e-commerce will have major and lasting effects on economic activity. But the rise and fall in the valuations of the first wave of e-commerce companies show that vague promises of distant profits are insufficient. Only business models based on sound...

Traditional economic wisdom says that free entry in a market will drive profits down to zero. This conclusion is usually drawn under the assumption of perfect information. We assume that a priori there exists imperfect information about the profitability of the market, but that potential...

The economic boom of the USA in the 1990s was remarkable in its duration, the sustained rise in equipment investment, the reduced volatility of productivity growth, and continued uncertainty about the trend growth rate. In this paper we link these phenomena using an extension of the classic...