Hancart, Nathan;
(2023)
Essays in Microeconomic Theory.
Doctoral thesis (Ph.D), UCL (University College London).
Preview |
Text
Thesis.pdf - Accepted Version Download (668kB) | Preview |
Abstract
This thesis consists of three independent chapters. - A decision-maker must accept or reject a privately informed agent. The agent always wants to be accepted, while the decision-maker wants to accept only a subset of types. The decision-maker has access to a set of feasible tests and, prior to making a decision, requires the agent to choose a test from a menu. I show that the DM does not benefit from commitment in this context. I then show in various environments when the DM benefits from offering a menu. When the domain of feasible tests contains a most informative test, I characterise when only the dominant test is offered and when a dominated test is part of the optimal menu. I also consider settings where types are multidimensional or where tests vary in difficulty. - I consider a model of monopoly pricing where a firm makes a price offer to a buyer with reference-dependent preferences. The reference point is the ex-ante probability of trade and the buyer exhibits an attachment effect: the higher his expectations to buy, the higher his willingness-to-pay. When the buyer's valuation is private information, a unique equilibrium exists where the firm plays a mixed strategy and its profits are the same as in the reference-independent benchmark. The equilibrium always entails inefficiencies: the probability of no trade is greater than zero. Finally, I show that when the firm can design a test about the buyer's valuation, it is better off using a noisy test. - I provide a sufficient condition under which a principal does not benefit from commitment in economic situations described by a constrained maximisation problem. Commitment has no value when the \textit{marginal} contribution of the constraints is null in the problem with commitment. I use this result to extend multiple results in mechanism design.
| Type: | Thesis (Doctoral) |
|---|---|
| Qualification: | Ph.D |
| Title: | Essays in Microeconomic Theory |
| Open access status: | An open access version is available from UCL Discovery |
| Language: | English |
| Additional information: | Copyright © The Author 2023. Original content in this thesis is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0) Licence (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/). Any third-party copyright material present remains the property of its respective owner(s) and is licensed under its existing terms. Access may initially be restricted at the author’s request. |
| UCL classification: | UCL UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL SLASH UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL SLASH > Faculty of S&HS UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL SLASH > Faculty of S&HS > Dept of Economics |
| URI: | https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10176602 |
Archive Staff Only
 |
View Item |
