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Robust contracting under common value uncertainty

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  • Auster, Sarah

    (Department of Decision Sciences and IGIER, Bocconi University)

Abstract

A buyer makes an offer to a privately informed seller for a good of uncertain quality. Quality determines both the seller's valuation and the buyer's valuation and the buyer evaluates each contract according to its worst-case performance over a set of probability distributions. The paper demonstrates that the contract that maximizes the minimum payoff over all possible probability distributions of quality is a screening menu that separates all types, whereas the optimal contract for any given probability distribution is a posted price, which induces bunching. Using the ϵ-contamination model, according to which the buyer's utility is a weighted average of his single prior expected utility and the worst-case scenario, the analysis further shows that for intermediate degrees of confidence the optimal mechanism combines features of both of these contracts.

Suggested Citation

  • Auster, Sarah, 2018. "Robust contracting under common value uncertainty," Theoretical Economics, Econometric Society, vol. 13(1), January.
    • Handle: RePEc:the:publsh:2385
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    Cited by:

    1. Julio Backhoff-Veraguas & Patrick Beissner & Ulrich Horst, 2019. "Robust Contracting in General Contract Spaces," Papers 1910.12516, arXiv.org, revised Mar 2021.
    2. Zhaolin Li & Samuel N. Kirshner, 2021. "Salesforce Compensation and Two‐Sided Ambiguity: Robust Moral Hazard with Moment Information," Production and Operations Management, Production and Operations Management Society, vol. 30(9), pages 2944-2961, September.
    3. Eitan Sapiro-Gheiler, 2021. "Persuasion with Ambiguous Receiver Preferences," Papers 2109.11536, arXiv.org, revised Aug 2023.
    4. Giuseppe Lopomo & Luca Rigotti & Chris Shannon, 2021. "Uncertainty in Mechanism Design," Papers 2108.12633, arXiv.org.
    5. Sosung Baik & Sung-Ha Hwang, 2021. "Auction design with ambiguity: Optimality of the first-price and all-pay auctions," Papers 2110.08563, arXiv.org.
    6. Wanchang Zhang, 2021. "Random Double Auction: A Robust Bilateral Trading Mechanism," Papers 2105.05427, arXiv.org, revised May 2022.
    7. Eran Hanany & Peter Klibanoff & Sujoy Mukerji, 2020. "Incomplete Information Games with Ambiguity Averse Players," American Economic Journal: Microeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 12(2), pages 135-187, May.
    8. Evren, Özgür, 2019. "Recursive non-expected utility: Connecting ambiguity attitudes to risk preferences and the level of ambiguity," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 114(C), pages 285-307.
    9. Soheil Ghili & Peter Klibanoff, 2021. "If It Is Surely Better, Do It More? Implications for Preferences Under Ambiguity," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 67(12), pages 7619-7636, December.
    10. NAKADA, Satoshi & NITZAN, Shmuel & UI, Takashi & 宇井, 貴志, 2017. "Robust Voting under Uncertainty," Discussion paper series HIAS-E-60, Hitotsubashi Institute for Advanced Study, Hitotsubashi University.
    11. Rosenthal, Maxwell, 2023. "Robust incentives for risk," Journal of Mathematical Economics, Elsevier, vol. 109(C).
    12. Suzdaltsev, Alex, 2022. "Distributionally robust pricing in independent private value auctions," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 206(C).
    13. Julio Backhoff-Veraguas & Patrick Beissner & Ulrich Horst, 2022. "Robust contracting in general contract spaces," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 73(4), pages 917-945, June.
    14. Longjian Li, 2022. "Ambiguous Cheap Talk," Papers 2209.08494, arXiv.org.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Ambiguity aversion; optimal contracting; lemons problem;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D81 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Criteria for Decision-Making under Risk and Uncertainty
    • 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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