IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/cpr/ceprdp/13018.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

The Scope of Sequential Screening with Ex-Post Participation Constraints

Author

Listed:
  • Bergemann, Dirk
  • Castro, Francisco
  • Weintraub, Gabriel

Abstract

We study the classic sequential screening problem in the presence of buyers' ex-post participation constraints. A leading example is the online display advertising market, in which publishers frequently do not use up-front fees and instead use transaction-contingent fees. We establish conditions under which the optimal selling mechanism is static and buyers are not screened with respect to their interim type, or sequential and the buyers are screened with respect to their interim type. In particular, we provide an intuitive necessary and sufficient condition under which the static contract is optimal for general distributions of ex-post values. Further, we completely characterize the optimal sequential contract with binary interim types and continuum of ex-post values when this condition fails. Importantly, the latter contract randomizes the allocation of the low type buyer while giving a deterministic allocation to the high type. We also provide partial results for the case of multiple interim types.

Suggested Citation

  • Bergemann, Dirk & Castro, Francisco & Weintraub, Gabriel, 2018. "The Scope of Sequential Screening with Ex-Post Participation Constraints," CEPR Discussion Papers 13018, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    • Handle: RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:13018
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://cepr.org/publications/DP13018
    Download Restriction: CEPR Discussion Papers are free to download for our researchers, subscribers and members. If you fall into one of these categories but have trouble downloading our papers, please contact us at subscribers@cepr.org
    ---><---

    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. Krähmer, Daniel & Strausz, Roland, 2016. "Optimality of sequential screening with multiple units and ex post participation constraints," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 142(C), pages 64-68.
    2. Bulow, Jeremy & Roberts, John, 1989. "The Simple Economics of Optimal Auctions," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 97(5), pages 1060-1090, October.
    3. Fuchs, William & Skrzypacz, Andrzej, 2015. "Government interventions in a dynamic market with adverse selection," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 158(PA), pages 371-406.
    4. Myerson, Roger B, 1979. "Incentive Compatibility and the Bargaining Problem," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 47(1), pages 61-73, January.
    5. Samuelson, William F, 1984. "Bargaining under Asymmetric Information," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 52(4), pages 995-1005, July.
    6. Pascal Courty & Li Hao, 2000. "Sequential Screening," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 67(4), pages 697-717.
    7. Santiago R. Balseiro & Vahab S. Mirrokni & Renato Paes Leme, 2018. "Dynamic Mechanisms with Martingale Utilities," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 64(11), pages 5062-5082, November.
    8. Manuel Amador & Kyle Bagwell, 2013. "The Theory of Optimal Delegation With an Application to Tariff Caps," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 81(4), pages 1541-1599, July.
    9. Manelli, Alejandro M. & Vincent, Daniel R., 2007. "Multidimensional mechanism design: Revenue maximization and the multiple-good monopoly," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 137(1), pages 153-185, November.
    10. Roger B. Myerson, 1981. "Optimal Auction Design," Mathematics of Operations Research, INFORMS, vol. 6(1), pages 58-73, February.
    11. Akan, Mustafa & Ata, Barış & Dana, James D., 2015. "Revenue management by sequential screening," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 159(PB), pages 728-774.
    12. 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.
    13. Krähmer, Daniel & Kováč, Eugen, 2016. "Optimal sequential delegation," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 163(C), pages 849-888.
    14. Krähmer, Daniel & Strausz, Roland, 2014. "Optimal sales contracts with withdrawal rights," SFB 649 Discussion Papers 2014-045, Humboldt University Berlin, Collaborative Research Center 649: Economic Risk.
    15. Gerhard Winkler, 1988. "Extreme Points of Moment Sets," Mathematics of Operations Research, INFORMS, vol. 13(4), pages 581-587, November.
    16. L. Elisa Celis & Gregory Lewis & Markus Mobius & Hamid Nazerzadeh, 2014. "Buy-It-Now or Take-a-Chance: Price Discrimination Through Randomized Auctions," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 60(12), pages 2927-2948, December.
    17. Heumann, Tibor, 2020. "Information design and sequential screening with ex post participation constraint," Theoretical Economics, Econometric Society, vol. 15(1), January.
    18. 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.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Bergemann, Dirk & Strack, Philipp, 2022. "Progressive participation," Theoretical Economics, Econometric Society, vol. 17(3), July.
    2. Lu, Jingfeng & Wang, Zijia, 2021. "Optimal selling mechanisms with buyer price search," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 196(C).
    3. Meng, Dawen & Sun, Lei & Tian, Guoqiang, 2022. "Dynamic mechanism design on social networks," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 131(C), pages 84-120.
    4. Heumann, Tibor, 2020. "Information design and sequential screening with ex post participation constraint," Theoretical Economics, Econometric Society, vol. 15(1), January.
    5. Bergemann, Dirk & Castro, Francisco & Weintraub, Gabriel, 2022. "Third-degree price discrimination versus uniform pricing," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 131(C), pages 275-291.
    6. Dirk Bergemann & Juuso Välimäki, 2019. "Dynamic Mechanism Design: An Introduction," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 57(2), pages 235-274, June.
    7. Bergemann, Dirk & V�lim�ki, Juuso, 2017. "Dynamic Mechanism Design: An Introduction," CEPR Discussion Papers 12240, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    8. Vahab Mirrokni & Renato Paes Leme & Pingzhong Tang & Song Zuo, 2018. "Optimal Dynamic Auctions are Virtual Welfare Maximizers," Papers 1812.02993, arXiv.org.
    9. Krähmer, Daniel & Strausz, Roland, 2022. "Dynamic Screening with Verifiable Bankruptcy," Rationality and Competition Discussion Paper Series 348, CRC TRR 190 Rationality and Competition.
    10. Yingkai Li & Jonathan Libgober, 2023. "Implementing Evidence Acquisition: Time Dependence in Contracts for Advice," Papers 2310.19147, arXiv.org, revised Sep 2024.
    11. Dirk Bergemann & Francisco Castro & Gabriel Weintraub, 2019. "Uniform Pricing Versus Third-Degree Price Discrimination," Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers 2213r, Cowles Foundation for Research in Economics, Yale University, revised Feb 2020.
    12. Liu, Bin & Liu, Dongri & Lu, Jingfeng, 2020. "Shifting supports in Esö and Szentes (2007)," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 193(C).
    13. Can Küçükgül & Özalp Özer & Shouqiang Wang, 2022. "Engineering Social Learning: Information Design of Time-Locked Sales Campaigns for Online Platforms," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 68(7), pages 4899-4918, July.

    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. Krähmer, Daniel & Strausz, Roland, 2017. "Sequential versus static screening: An equivalence result," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 106(C), pages 317-328.
    2. Krähmer, Daniel & Kováč, Eugen, 2016. "Optimal sequential delegation," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 163(C), pages 849-888.
    3. Deb, Rahul & Said, Maher, 2015. "Dynamic screening with limited commitment," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 159(PB), pages 891-928.
    4. Mierendorff, Konrad, 2016. "Optimal dynamic mechanism design with deadlines," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 161(C), pages 190-222.
    5. Pham, Hien, 2023. "How Information Design Shapes Optimal Selling Mechanisms," MPRA Paper 120989, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised 06 Mar 2024.
    6. Bergemann, Dirk & Castro, Francisco & Weintraub, Gabriel, 2022. "Third-degree price discrimination versus uniform pricing," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 131(C), pages 275-291.
    7. Alex Smolin, 2023. "Disclosure and pricing of attributes," RAND Journal of Economics, RAND Corporation, vol. 54(4), pages 570-597, December.
    8. Dirk Bergemann & Alessandro Bonatti & Alex Smolin, 2018. "The Design and Price of Information," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 108(1), pages 1-48, January.
    9. Marina Halac & Pierre Yared, 2022. "Fiscal Rules and Discretion Under Limited Enforcement," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 90(5), pages 2093-2127, September.
    10. Krähmer, Daniel & Strausz, Roland, 2022. "Dynamic Screening with Verifiable Bankruptcy," Rationality and Competition Discussion Paper Series 348, CRC TRR 190 Rationality and Competition.
    11. Pham, Hien, 2023. "How Information Design Shapes Optimal Selling Mechanisms," MPRA Paper 120364, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised 06 Mar 2024.
    12. Lu, Jingfeng & Wang, Zijia, 2021. "Optimal selling mechanisms with buyer price search," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 196(C).
    13. Santiago R. Balseiro & Vahab S. Mirrokni & Renato Paes Leme, 2018. "Dynamic Mechanisms with Martingale Utilities," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 64(11), pages 5062-5082, November.
    14. Pham, Hien, 2023. "How Information Design Shapes Optimal Selling Mechanisms," MPRA Paper 120462, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised 17 Mar 2024.
    15. 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).
    16. Heumann, Tibor, 2020. "Information design and sequential screening with ex post participation constraint," Theoretical Economics, Econometric Society, vol. 15(1), January.
    17. von Wangenheim, Jonas, 2017. "Consumer-Optimal Information Design," Rationality and Competition Discussion Paper Series 53, CRC TRR 190 Rationality and Competition.
    18. Rohit Lamba & Ilia Krasikov, 2017. "A Theory of Dynamic Contracting with Financial Constraints," 2017 Meeting Papers 1544, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    19. Boaz Zik, 2023. "Efficient sequential screening with informational externalities," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 75(2), pages 567-590, February.
    20. Arve, Malin & Zwart, Gijsbert, 2023. "Optimal procurement and investment in new technologies under uncertainty," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 147(C).

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Sequential screening; Ex-post participation constraints; Static contract; Sequential contract;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • C72 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Game Theory and Bargaining Theory - - - Noncooperative Games
    • D82 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Asymmetric and Private Information; Mechanism Design
    • D83 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Search; Learning; Information and Knowledge; Communication; Belief; Unawareness

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:cpr:ceprdp:13018. 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: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.cepr.org .

    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.