This paper establishes a general form of the "payoff equivalence" result in mechanism design theory: under certain conditions, the utility of any type in an incentive-compatible mechanism is determined up to an additive constant by the allocation rule alone. When types are single-dimensional the result is well known (see, for instance, Myerson (1981)). When types are multi-dimensional the result follows from the Fundamental Theorem of Calculus once sufficient smoothness is assumed. We obtain a more general result by using an extension of the Fundamental Theorem to nonsmooth convex functions and more generally, to the class of regular Lipschitzian functions.

We study subgame perfect equilibria of finitely repeated games. We prove a limit "folk theorem" for these games. Under weak conditions, any feasible and individually rational payoff vector of the one-shot game can be approximated by the average payoff in a perfect equilibrium of a repeated game with a sufficiently long horizon.

We study a dynamic model of duopoly in which firms choose both prices and quantities. If quantity (capacity) choices are relatively inflexible, firms generally carry excess (idle) capacity in equilibrium. Because of this enforcement cost, firms are unable to achieve monopoly levels. This contrasts with models in which which firms compete in either prices or quantities alone. On the other hand, if capacities are flexible firms may be able to sustain monopoly behaviour.

We consider a decision maker who faces dynamic decision situations that involve intertemporal trade-offs, as in consumption–savings problems, and who experiences taste shocks that are transient contingent on the state of the world. We axiomatize a recursive representation of choice over state contingent infinite horizon consumption problems, where uncertainty about consumption utilities depends on the observable state and the state follows a subjective Markov process. The parameters of the representation are the subjective process that governs the evolution of beliefs over consumption utilities and the discount factor; they are uniquely identified from behavior. We characterize a natural notion of greater preference for flexibility in terms of a dilation of beliefs. An important special case of our representation is a recursive version of the Anscombe–Aumann model with parameters that include a subjective Markov process over states and state-dependent utilities, all of which are uniquely identified.

Perfect equilibria of finitely repeated games may be vulnerable to the possibility of renegotiation among players. We study the limiting properties of the set of payoffs from equilibria that are immune to renegotiation. Our main result is that the limit of the set of payoffs from renegotiation proof equilibria is either a singleton or a connected subset of the Pareto efficient frontier. A simple sufficient condition for the latter to occur is also provided.

We study a model in which voters choose between two candidates on the basis of both ideology and competence. While the ideology of the candidates is commonly known, voters are imperfectly informed about competence. Voter preferences, however, are such that ideology alone determines voting. When voting is compulsory, the candidate of the majority ideology prevails, and this may not be optimal from a social perspective. However, when voting is voluntary and costly, we show that turnout adjusts endogenously so that the outcome of a large election is always first-best.

The authors study a multilateral bargaining procedure that extends A. Rubinstein's (1982) alternating offer game to the case of n players. The procedure captures the notion of consistency in the sense familiar in cooperative game theory and they use it to establish links to the axiomatic theory of bargaining.

We study the role of communication within a cartel. Our analysis is carried out in Stigler’s (1964) model of repeated oligopoly with secret price cuts. Firms observe neither the prices nor the sales of their rivals. For a fixed discount factor, we identify conditions under which there are equilibria with “cheap talk” that result in near-perfect collusion, whereas all equilibria without such communication are bounded away from this outcome. In our model, communication improves monitoring and leads to higher prices and profits.

We study first- and second-price auctions with resale in a model with independent private values. With asymmetric bidders, the resulting inefficiencies create a motive for post-auction trade which, in our model, takes place via monopoly pricing—the winner makes a take-it-or-leave-it offer to the loser. We show (a) a first-price auction with resale has a unique monotonic equilibrium; and (b) with resale, the expected revenue from a first-price auction exceeds that from a second-price auction. The inclusion of resale possibilities thus permits a general revenue ranking of the two auctions that is not available when these are excluded.

We study an R&D race between an established firm and a startup under asymmetric information. R&D investment brings success stochastically, but only if the innovation is feasible. The only asymmetry is that the established firm has better information about the feasibility of the innovation. We show that there is an equilibrium in which the poorly informed startup wins more often, and has higher expected profits, than the better-informed incumbent. When the informational asymmetry is large, this is the unique equilibrium outcome. The channel by which better information becomes a competitive disadvantage appears to be new and stems from the fact that better information dulls the incentive to learn from one’s rival.