We study a mechanism design problem in which players can take part in a mechanism to coordinate their actions in a default game. By refusing to participate in the mechanism, a player can revert to playing the default game non-cooperatively. We show with an example that some allocation rules are...

Though individuals prefer to join groups with high quality peers, there are also advantages from being high up in the pecking order within a group. We show that sorting of agents in this environment results in an overlapping interval structure in the type space. Segregation and mixing coexist in...

We provide a simple proof of the equivalence between ex ante and ex post budget balance constraints in Bayesian mechanism design with independent types when participation decisions are made at the interim stage. The result is given an interpretation in terms of efficient allocation of risk.

An extension to Ellsberg's experiment demonstrates that attitudes to ambiguity and compound objective lotteries are tightly associated. The sample is decomposed into three main groups: subjective expected utility subjects - who reduce compound objective lotteries and are ambiguity neutral, and...

Though individuals prefer to join groups with high quality peers, there are advantages to being high up in the pecking order within a group if higher ranked members of a group have greater access to the group's resources. When two organizations try to attract members from a ¯xed population of...

This paper studies Bayesian equilibrium in a worker firm matching problem in which workers choose their human capi- tal investment and firms choose wages before the matching process occurs. Symmetric equilibrium exists, and supports assortative matching. However, when the number of traders is...

Two sides of a finite marriage market engage in costly investment and are then matched assortatively. The purpose of the investment is solely to improve the quality of the match that trader can attain in the second stage. The paper studies the limits of equilibrium of these finite matching games...

We develop a nonparametric approach that allows for discrimination among alternative models of entry in first-price auctions. Three models of entry are considered: those of Levin and Smith (1994), Samuelson (1985), and a new model in which the information received at the entry stage is...

This paper develops a model in which competing governments offer financial incentives to individual firms to induce the firms to locate within their jurisdictions. Equilibrium is described under three specifications of the supplementary taxes. There is no misallocation of capital under two of...

This paper considers a model of a rating agency with multiple clients. Each client has a separate market (end-user of the rating); the only connection among them is that the underlying qualities of the clients are correlated. In the benchmark case of individual rating, the market for each client...