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Jacques Cremer

Bio: Jacques Cremer is an academic researcher. The author has contributed to research in topics: Strategic dominance & Product (category theory). The author has an hindex of 6, co-authored 6 publications receiving 1752 citations.

Papers
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Journal Article•DOI•
TL;DR: In this article, the authors consider auctions for a single indivisible object, in which the bidders have information about each other which is not available to the seller and show that the seller can use this information to his own benefit, and completely characterize the environ- ments in which a well chosen auction gives him the same expected payoff as that obtainable were he able to sell the object with full information about the bidder's willingness to pay.
Abstract: We consider auctions for a single indivisible object, in the case where the bidders have information about each other which is not available to the seller. We show that the seller can use this information to his own benefit, and we completely characterize the environ- ments in which a well chosen auction gives him the same expected payoff as that obtainable were he able to sell the object with full information about each bidder's willingness to pay. We provide this characterization for auctions in which the bidders have dominant strate- gies, and for those where the relevant equilibrium concept is Bayesian Nash. In both set-ups, the existence of these auctions hinges on the possibility of constructing lotteries with the correct properties. WE CONSIDER the situation in which an agent, the seller, possesses one indivisible unit of a good to which he attaches no value. But the good has value to a number of potential buyers, and its transfer to one of them would increase social welfare. In particular, the transfer to the buyer with the highest valuation maximizes social welfare. In this paper, we completely characterize environments in which the seller can design an auction that will enable him to capture for himself the full increase in social welfare induced by the transfer of the good to the bidder with the highest willingness to pay. If the seller had full information about the reservation prices of potential buyers, his optimal selling strategy would be very simple. He would announce a price equal or very close to the highest reservation value. The optimal strategy for the bidder with the highest evaluation would be to accept the offer. (Note that we are treating a situation in which the seller can commit himself to a price.) As a result of the exchange, the utility of the seller increases by the full amount of the increase in social welfare, and he has been able to fully extract the surplus. In many circumstances, however, a seller has only imperfect knowledge of the buyers' willingnesses to pay. In this case, he must find some mechanism, or auction, which will enable him to maximize his benefit from the sale of the object. The auction literature starts with this observation and shows how the seller can, by an astute choice of auction, extract the largest possible fraction of the surplus. In general, the literature has shown that this proportion is strictly less than one. In some circumstances, the bidders will have information about each other which is not available to the seller. For instance, in auctions for petroleum drilling rights, bidders know the results of geological tests which they have

925 citations

Journal Article•DOI•
TL;DR: In this article, the optimal design of resource allocation mechanisms in the presence of asymmetric information was studied and sufficient conditions were provided under which the seller can extract the full surplus from the buyers in an "ex post Nash" equilibrium.
Abstract: JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org. This paper deals with the optimal design of resource allocation mechanisms in the presence of asymmetric information. A buyer's valuation function is allowed to depend on the characteristics of other buyers as well as his own and sufficient conditions are provided under which the seller can extract the full surplus from the buyers in an "ex post Nash" equilibrium. The result is then applied to the important problem of optimal auction design.

633 citations

Journal Article•DOI•
TL;DR: In this article, a set of bilateral contracts forms a mechanism with special properties, and this mechanism forms a contract equilibrium if there is no joint incentive for a supplier and any individual customer unilaterally to alter the terms of their contract.
Abstract: Bilateral contracts, while neither negotiated nor enforced in an integrated way, are nevertheless often interrelated both economically and strategically owing to production or consumption complementarities and to asymmetric information. A set of bilateral contracts forms a mechanism with special properties. This mechanism forms a contract equilibrium if there is no joint incentive for a supplier and any individual customer unilaterally to alter the terms of their contract. If agents' preferences are risk neutral in money income, and if their private information is independent, then there exists a contract equilibrium that implements efficient transactions. If, in addition, preferences are strictly concave and differentiable in goods and services, and technologically feasible sets are suitably convex, then this equilibrium is essentially unique.

156 citations

Journal Article•DOI•
TL;DR: In this article, the authors present a theory of such phenomena as coupons valid for the next purchase of a good and high initiation fees for clubs, which can be explained by a model in which a monopolist sells a good, and the buyers are uncertain of their taste for the product but not of the quality of the product per se.
Abstract: This article presents a theory of such phenomena as coupons valid for the next purchase of a good and high initiation fees for clubs. In these cases the price of a nondurable good is lowered for second-time buyers. We show here that this can be explained by a model in which a monopolist sells a good, and the buyers are uncertain of their taste for the product but not of the quality of the product per se.

77 citations


Cited by
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Posted Content•
TL;DR: Hayek as mentioned in this paper argued that the problem of rational economic order is determined by the fact that the knowledge of the circumstances of which we must make use never exists in concentrated or integrated form but solely as the dispersed bits of incomplete and frequently contradictory knowledge which all the separate individuals possess.
Abstract: ONE PARTY TO AN EXCHANGE often knows something relevant to the transaction that the other party does not know. Such asymmetries of information are pervasive in economic activity: for example, in the relationship between employer and employee when the employee's effort cannot be monitored perfectly; between the stockholders and the manager of a firm; between insurer and insured; between a regulated firm and the regulatory agency; between the supplier and the consumers of a public good; between a socialist firm and the central planner; or (as is the subject of this paper) between buyer and seller when the value of the item is uncertain. Forty years ago, F. A. Hayek criticized theories that purport to describe the price system but start from the assumption that individuals have symmetric information: The peculiar character of the problem of a rational economic order is determined precisely by the fact that the knowledge of the circumstances of which we must make use never exists in concentrated or integrated form but solely as the dispersed bits of incomplete and frequently contradictory knowledge which all the separate individuals possess. The economic problem of society is thus not merely a problem of how to allocate "given" resources-if "given" is taken to mean given to a single mind which deliberately solves the problem set by these "data." It is rather a problem of how to secure the best use of resources known to any of the members of society, for ends whose relative importance only these individuals know. Or, to put it briefly, it is a problem of the utilization of knowledge which is not given to anyone in its totality. (Hayek 1945, p. 519)

2,518 citations

Book•
26 Dec 2001
TL;DR: Laffont and Martimort as mentioned in this paper focus on the principal-agent model, the "simple" situation where a principal, or company, delegates a task to a single agent through a contract, the essence of management and contract theory.
Abstract: Economics has much to do with incentives--not least, incentives to work hard, to produce quality products, to study, to invest, and to save. Although Adam Smith amply confirmed this more than two hundred years ago in his analysis of sharecropping contracts, only in recent decades has a theory begun to emerge to place the topic at the heart of economic thinking. In this book, Jean-Jacques Laffont and David Martimort present the most thorough yet accessible introduction to incentives theory to date. Central to this theory is a simple question as pivotal to modern-day management as it is to economics research: What makes people act in a particular way in an economic or business situation? In seeking an answer, the authors provide the methodological tools to design institutions that can ensure good incentives for economic agents. This book focuses on the principal-agent model, the "simple" situation where a principal, or company, delegates a task to a single agent through a contract--the essence of management and contract theory. How does the owner or manager of a firm align the objectives of its various members to maximize profits? Following a brief historical overview showing how the problem of incentives has come to the fore in the past two centuries, the authors devote the bulk of their work to exploring principal-agent models and various extensions thereof in light of three types of information problems: adverse selection, moral hazard, and non-verifiability. Offering an unprecedented look at a subject vital to industrial organization, labor economics, and behavioral economics, this book is set to become the definitive resource for students, researchers, and others who might find themselves pondering what contracts, and the incentives they embody, are really all about.

2,454 citations

Book Chapter•DOI•
TL;DR: The authors presented at the World Congress of the Econometric Society, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1985, The authors, a paper that was later used at the International Journal of Mathematical Information.
Abstract: This paper was presented at the World Congress of the Econometric Society, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1985

1,454 citations

Book•
Paul Milgrom1•
01 Jan 2004
TL;DR: This book provides a comprehensive introduction to modern auction theory and its important new applications and explores the tension between the traditional theory of auctions with a fixed set of bidders and the theory of Auction with endogenous entry, in which bidder profits must be respected to encourage participation.
Abstract: This book provides a comprehensive introduction to modern auction theory and its important new applications. It is written by a leading economic theorist whose suggestions guided the creation of the new spectrum auction designs. Aimed at graduate students and professionals in economics, the book gives the most up-to-date treatments of both traditional theories of 'optimal auctions' and newer theories of multi-unit auctions and package auctions, and shows by example how these theories are used. The analysis explores the limitations of prominent older designs, such as the Vickrey auction design, and evaluates the practical responses to those limitations. It explores the tension between the traditional theory of auctions with a fixed set of bidders, in which the seller seeks to squeeze as much revenue as possible from the fixed set, and the theory of auctions with endogenous entry, in which bidder profits must be respected to encourage participation.

1,287 citations

Journal Article•DOI•
Paul Klemperer1•
TL;DR: In this article, Klemperer et al. provide an elementary, non-technical, survey of auction theory, by introducing and describing some of the critical papers in the subject.
Abstract: This paper provides an elementary, non-technical, survey of auction theory, by introducing and describing some of the critical papers in the subject. (The most important of these are reproduced in a companion book, The Economic Theory of Auctions, Paul Klemperer (ed.), Edward Elgar (pub.), forthcoming.); We begin with the most fundamental concepts, and then introduce the basic analysis of optimal auctions, the revenue equivalence theorem, and marginal revenues. Subsequent sections address risk-aversion, affiliation, asymmetries, entry, collusion, multi-unit auctions, double auctions, royalties, incentive contracts, and other topics. Appendices contain technical details, some simple worked examples, and a bibliography for each section.

1,246 citations