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Progressive Screening: Long-Term Contracting with a Privately Known Stochastic Process

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  • Raphael Boleslavsky
  • Maher Said

Abstract

We examine a model of long-term contracting in which the buyer is privately informed about the stochastic process by which her value for a good evolves. In addition, the realized values are also private information. We characterize a class of environments in which the profit-maximizing long-term contract offered by a monopolist takes an especially simple structure: we derive sufficient conditions on primitives under which the optimal contract consists of a menu of deterministic sequences of static contracts. Within each sequence, higher realized values lead to greater quantity provision; however, an increasing proportion of buyer types are excluded over time, eventually leading to inefficiently early termination of the relationship. Moreover, the menu choices differ by future generosity, with more costly (up front) plans guaranteeing greater quantity provision in the future. Thus, the seller screens process information in the initial period and then progressively screens across realized values so as to reduce the information rents paid in future periods. Copyright , Oxford University Press.

Suggested Citation

  • 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.
    • Handle: RePEc:oup:restud:v:80:y:2013:i:1:p:1-34
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    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1093/restud/rds021
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    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

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