We are very sorry to report that Jane Martin, the Review's administrator for many years, passed away on 26 September 2009. As a tribute to her, we reproduce here a short extract from a reading at her funeral service: Since 1997, Jane was the administrator and production editor for the The Review of Economic Studies. In that post she blossomed, and with her literary and technical skills, her goodwill, quick wit, helpfulness and sense of humour became the hub for the ever-changing cast of editors, referees and authors. I knew Jane more or less from when she joined the journal, first as one of her editors and more recently as Chairman of the journal. Although physically frail, Jane had a strong and unflappable personality. She must have corresponded with an astonishing number of people over the years, many of whom had large egos and—if they had received a rejection letter from the editors, say—were not necessarily on their best behaviour. Jane invariably calmed the stormy waters. The fact that the journal has such a loyal community of board members, authors and referees is due in very large part to her sure touch at the helm. I never did hear a critical word about Jane from anyone.

This paper analyses optimal auctions of several objects. In the first model bidders have a binary distribution over their valuations for each object, in which case the optimal auction is efficient. The optimal auction takes one of two formats: either objects are sold in independent auctions, or a degree of bundling is introduced in the sense that the probability a bidder wins one object is increasing in her value for the other. The format of the optimal auction may depend upon the number of bidders. In the second model the restriction to binary distributions is relaxed, and the optimal auction is then inefficient.

Determining the optimal selling strategy for a multiproduct firm facing consumers with unobservable tastes is a difficult task. This paper aims to show how almost optimal nonlinear tariffs can often be found when the number of products is large. Moreover, such tariffs take a simple form: (i) when taste parameters are independently distributed across products, the almost optimal tariff is a single cost-based two-part tariff which can extract virtually all consumer surplus; (ii) when tastes are correlated across products, perhaps because of income differences across consumers, the almost optimal tariff can be implemented as a menu of two-part tariffs each of which has prices proportional to marginal costs.

We study sales techniques which discourage consumer search by making it harder or more expensive to return to buy after a search for alternatives. It is unilaterally profitable for a seller to deter search under mild conditions, but sellers can suffer when all do so. When a seller cannot commit to its policy, it exploits the inference that those consumers who try to buy later have no good alternative, and in many cases the outcome is as if the seller must make an exploding offer. Search deterrence results in sub-optimal matching of products to consumers and often raises the price consumers pay.

We examine competitive non-linear pricing in a model in which consumers have heterogeneous and elastic demands and can buy from more than one supplier. It is an equilibrium for firms to offer a menu of efficient two-part tariffs, where the discount for one-stop shopping is such that the elasticity of “demand for two-stop shopping” equals two. Compared with linear pricing, non-linear pricing tends to raise profit but harm consumers when: (i) demand is elastic, (ii) there is heterogeneity in consumer demand, (iii) consumers incur shopping costs when buying from more than one firm, and (iv) a consumer's brand preference for one product is correlated with her brand preference for another product. Non-linear pricing is more likely to lead to welfare gains when (iii) and (iv) hold, but (ii) does not.

We examine competitive nonlinear pricing in a model in which consumers have heterogeneous and elastic demands and can buy from more than one supplier.It is an equilibrium for firms to offer a menu of efficient two-part tariffs.Compared with linear pricing, nonlinear pricing tends to raise profit but harm consumers when: (i) demand is elastic, (ii) there is substantial heterogeneity in consumer demand, (iii) consumers face substantial shopping costs when buying from more than one firm, and (iv) a consumer's brand preference for one product is correlated with her brand preference for another product.Nonlinear pricing is more likely to lead to welfare gains when (iii) and (iv) hold, but (ii) does not.