IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/jetheo/v159y2015ipbp891-928.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Dynamic screening with limited commitment

Author

Listed:
  • Deb, Rahul
  • Said, Maher

Abstract

We examine a model of dynamic screening and price discrimination in which the seller has limited commitment power. Two cohorts of anonymous, patient, and risk-neutral buyers arrive over two periods. Buyers in the first cohort arrive in period one, are privately informed about the distribution of their values, and then privately learn the value realizations in period two. Buyers in the second cohort are “last-minute shoppers” that already know their values upon their arrival in period two. The seller can fully commit to a long-term contract with buyers in the first cohort, but cannot commit to the future contractual terms that will be offered to second-cohort buyers. The expected second-cohort contract serves as an endogenous type-dependent outside option for first-cohort buyers, reducing the seller's ability to extract rents via sequential contracts. We derive the seller-optimal equilibrium and show that, when the seller cannot condition on future contractual terms (either explicitly or implicitly), she endogenously generates a commitment to maintaining high future prices by manipulating the timing of contracting.

Suggested Citation

  • Deb, Rahul & Said, Maher, 2015. "Dynamic screening with limited commitment," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 159(PB), pages 891-928.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:jetheo:v:159:y:2015:i:pb:p:891-928
    DOI: 10.1016/j.jet.2015.05.015
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0022053115001039
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.jet.2015.05.015?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to look for a different version below or search for a different version of it.

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Ilya Segal & Susan Athey, 2007. "Designing Efficient Mechanisms for Dynamic Bilateral Trading Games," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 97(2), pages 131-136, May.
    2. Besanko, David, 1985. "Multi-period contracts between principal and agent with adverse selection," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 17(1-2), pages 33-37.
    3. Daniel Krähmer & Roland Strausz, 2015. "Optimal Sales Contracts with Withdrawal Rights," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 82(2), pages 762-790.
    4. Mark Armstrong & Jidong Zhou, 2016. "Search Deterrence," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 83(1), pages 26-57.
    5. Battaglini, Marco & Lamba, Rohit, 2019. "Optimal dynamic contracting: the first-order approach and beyond," Theoretical Economics, Econometric Society, vol. 14(4), November.
    6. Jeffrey C. Ely & Daniel F. Garrett & Toomas Hinnosaar, 2017. "Overbooking," Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 15(6), pages 1258-1301.
    7. Bester, Helmut & Strausz, Roland, 2001. "Contracting with Imperfect Commitment and the Revelation Principle: The Single Agent Case," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 69(4), pages 1077-1098, July.
    8. Jullien, Bruno, 2000. "Participation Constraints in Adverse Selection Models," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 93(1), pages 1-47, July.
    9. Pascal Courty & Li Hao, 2000. "Sequential Screening," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 67(4), pages 697-717.
    10. Said, Maher, 2012. "Auctions with dynamic populations: Efficiency and revenue maximization," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 147(6), pages 2419-2438.
    11. Butz, David A, 1990. "Durable-Good Monopoly and Best-Price Provisions," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 80(5), pages 1062-1076, December.
    12. Paul Milgrom & Ilya Segal, 2002. "Envelope Theorems for Arbitrary Choice Sets," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 70(2), pages 583-601, March.
    13. Simon Board, 2008. "Durable-Goods Monopoly with Varying Demand," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 75(2), pages 391-413.
    14. Baron, David P. & Besanko, David, 1984. "Regulation and information in a continuing relationship," Information Economics and Policy, Elsevier, vol. 1(3), pages 267-302.
    15. Daniel Krähmer & Roland Strausz, 2011. "Optimal Procurement Contracts with Pre-Project Planning," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 78(3), pages 1015-1041.
    16. Justin P. Johnson & David P. Myatt, 2006. "On the Simple Economics of Advertising, Marketing, and Product Design," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 96(3), pages 756-784, June.
    17. Roger B. Myerson, 1981. "Optimal Auction Design," Mathematics of Operations Research, INFORMS, vol. 6(1), pages 58-73, February.
    18. Alessandro Pavan & Ilya Segal & Juuso Toikka, 2014. "Dynamic Mechanism Design: A Myersonian Approach," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 82(2), pages 601-653, March.
    19. Jean-Jacques Laffont & Jean Tirole, 1990. "Adverse Selection and Renegotiation in Procurement," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 57(4), pages 597-625.
    20. John Riley & Richard Zeckhauser, 1983. "Optimal Selling Strategies: When to Haggle, When to Hold Firm," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 98(2), pages 267-289.
    21. Marco Battaglini, 2005. "Long-Term Contracting with Markovian Consumers," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 95(3), pages 637-658, June.
    22. Andrzej Skrzypacz & Juuso Toikka, 2015. "Mechanisms for Repeated Trade," American Economic Journal: Microeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 7(4), pages 252-293, November.
    23. Fudenberg, Drew & Tirole, Jean, 1990. "Moral Hazard and Renegotiation in Agency Contracts," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 58(6), pages 1279-1319, November.
    24. Bulow, Jeremy I, 1982. "Durable-Goods Monopolists," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 90(2), pages 314-332, April.
    25. Alex Gershkov & Benny Moldovanu, 2009. "Learning about the Future and Dynamic Efficiency," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 99(4), pages 1576-1587, September.
    26. Marco Battaglini & Rohit Lamba, 2012. "Optimal Dynamic Contracting," Working Papers 1431, Princeton University, Department of Economics, Econometric Research Program..
    27. Raphael Boleslavsky & Maher Said, 2013. "Progressive Screening: Long-Term Contracting with a Privately Known Stochastic Process," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 80(1), pages 1-34.
    28. Vasiliki Skreta, 2006. "Sequentially Optimal Mechanisms -super-1," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 73(4), pages 1085-1111.
    29. Mallesh M. Pai & Rakesh Vohra, 2013. "Optimal Dynamic Auctions and Simple Index Rules," Mathematics of Operations Research, INFORMS, vol. 38(4), pages 682-697, November.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Bergemann, Dirk & Pavan, Alessandro, 2015. "Introduction to Symposium on Dynamic Contracts and Mechanism Design," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 159(PB), pages 679-701.
    2. Garrett, Daniel F., 2017. "Dynamic mechanism design: Dynamic arrivals and changing values," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 104(C), pages 595-612.
    3. Dirk Bergemann & Alessandro Pavan, 2015. "Introduction to JET Symposium Issue on "Dynamic Contracts and Mechanism Design"," Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers 2016, Cowles Foundation for Research in Economics, Yale University.
    4. Jean Tirole, 2016. "From Bottom of the Barrel to Cream of the Crop: Sequential Screening With Positive Selection," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 84(4), pages 1291-1343, July.
    5. Krähmer, Daniel & Strausz, Roland, 2017. "Sequential versus static screening: An equivalence result," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 106(C), pages 317-328.
    6. Bergemann, Dirk & Strack, Philipp, 2015. "Dynamic revenue maximization: A continuous time approach," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 159(PB), pages 819-853.
    7. Mierendorff, Konrad, 2016. "Optimal dynamic mechanism design with deadlines," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 161(C), pages 190-222.
    8. Emil Temnyalov, 2019. "Points mechanisms and rewards programs," Journal of Economics & Management Strategy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 28(3), pages 436-457, June.
    9. Lu, Jingfeng & Wang, Zijia, 2021. "Optimal selling mechanisms with buyer price search," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 196(C).
    10. Bergemann, Dirk & V�lim�ki, Juuso, 2017. "Dynamic Mechanism Design: An Introduction," CEPR Discussion Papers 12240, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    11. Sham M. Kakade & Ilan Lobel & Hamid Nazerzadeh, 2013. "Optimal Dynamic Mechanism Design and the Virtual-Pivot Mechanism," Operations Research, INFORMS, vol. 61(4), pages 837-854, August.
    12. Krasikov, Ilia & Lamba, Rohit, 2021. "A theory of dynamic contracting with financial constraints," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 193(C).
    13. Rohit Lamba & Ilia Krasikov, 2017. "A Theory of Dynamic Contracting with Financial Constraints," 2017 Meeting Papers 1544, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    14. Terstiege, Stefan, 2016. "Gathering imperfect information before signing a contract," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 97(C), pages 70-87.
    15. Dirk Bergemann & Juuso Välimäki, 2019. "Dynamic Mechanism Design: An Introduction," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 57(2), pages 235-274, June.
    16. Bergemann, Dirk & Strack, Philipp, 2022. "Progressive participation," Theoretical Economics, Econometric Society, vol. 17(3), July.
    17. Dirk Bergemann & Maher Said, 2010. "Dynamic Auctions: A Survey," Levine's Working Paper Archive 661465000000000035, David K. Levine.
    18. Huiyi Guo & Wei He & Bin Liu, 2022. "Learning by Consuming: Optimal Pricing with Endogenous Information Provision," Papers 2209.01453, arXiv.org.
    19. Meng, Dawen & Sun, Lei & Tian, Guoqiang, 2022. "Dynamic mechanism design on social networks," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 131(C), pages 84-120.
    20. Herbst, Holger, 2015. "Pricing Heterogeneous Goods under Ex Post Private Information," Bonn Econ Discussion Papers 01/2015, University of Bonn, Bonn Graduate School of Economics (BGSE).

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Asymmetric information; Dynamic mechanism design; Limited commitment; Recontracting; Sequential screening; Type-dependent participation;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • C73 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Game Theory and Bargaining Theory - - - Stochastic and Dynamic Games; Evolutionary Games
    • D82 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Asymmetric and Private Information; Mechanism Design
    • D86 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Economics of Contract Law

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:jetheo:v:159:y:2015:i:pb:p:891-928. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/inca/622869 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.