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Full-Text Articles in Business
Combinatorial Auctions, Peter Cramton, Yoav Shoham, Richard Steinberg
Combinatorial Auctions, Peter Cramton, Yoav Shoham, Richard Steinberg
Peter Cramton
A comprehensive book on combinatorial auctions―auctions in which bidders can bid on packages of items. The book consists of original material intended for researchers, students, and practitioners of auction design. It includes a foreword by Vernon Smith, an introduction to combinatorial auctions, and twenty-three cross-referenced chapters in five parts. Part I covers mechanisms, such as the Vickrey auction and the ascending proxy auction. Part II is on bidding and efficiency issues. Part III examines computational issues and algorithmic considerations, especially the winner determination problem―how to identify the (tentative) winning set of bids that maximizes revenue. Part IV discusses implementation and …
Ratifiable Mechanisms: Learning From Disagreement, Peter Cramton, Thomas R. Palfrey
Ratifiable Mechanisms: Learning From Disagreement, Peter Cramton, Thomas R. Palfrey
Peter Cramton
In a mechanism design problem, participation constraints require that all types prefer the proposed mechanism to some status quo. If equilibrium play in the status quo mechanism depends on the players’ beliefs, then the inference drawn if someone objects to the proposed mechanism may alter the participation constraints. We investigate this issue by modeling the mechanism design problem as a two-stage process, consisting of a ratification stage followed by the actual play of the chosen game. We develop and illustrate a new concept, ratifiability, that takes account of inferences from a veto in a consistent way.
Relational Investing And Agency Theory, Peter Cramton, Ian Ayres
Relational Investing And Agency Theory, Peter Cramton, Ian Ayres
Peter Cramton
This Article analyzes how, and when, corporate governance could be improved by utilizing "relational investing." The term relational investing is just coming into vogue and there does not yet seem to be a consensus on what it means. Although the term has been trumpeted on the cover of Business Week, before the Conference on Relational Investing at Columbia University, relatively little legal writing had been published on the subject. For the purposes of this Article, we define relational investing to encompass commitments to buy and hold significant blocks of a corporation's stock. And it is particularly important that the relational …
Cartel Enforcement With Uncertainty About Costs, Peter Cramton, Thomas R. Palfrey
Cartel Enforcement With Uncertainty About Costs, Peter Cramton, Thomas R. Palfrey
Peter Cramton
What cartel agreements are possible when firms have private information about production costs? For private cost uncertainty we characterize the set of cartel agreements that can be supported, recognizing incentive and participation constraints. If defection results in either Cournot or Bertrand competition, the incentive problem in large cartels is severe enough to prevent the cartel from achieving the monopoly outcome. However, if the cartel agreement requires less than unanimous ratification by the member firms, then the incentive problem can be overcome in large cartels. With common cost uncertainty, perfect collusion is possible in large cartels, regardless of the ratification rule.
Dissolving A Partnership Efficiently, Peter Cramton, Robert Gibbons, Paul Klemperer
Dissolving A Partnership Efficiently, Peter Cramton, Robert Gibbons, Paul Klemperer
Peter Cramton
Several partners jointly own an asset that may be traded among them. Each partner has a valuation for the asset; the valuations are known privately and drawn independently from a common probability distribution. We characterize the set of all incentive-compatible and interim-individually-rational trading mechanisms, and give a simple necessary and sufficient condition for such mechanisms to dissolve the partnership ex post efficiently. A bidding game is constructed that achieves such dissolution whenever it is possible. Despite incomplete information about the valuation of the asset, a partnership can be dissolved ex post efficiently provided no single partner owns too large a …