PHDBA279B Field Exam Papers

• This page is included under the section BPP Field Exam

The following papers were selected for study for PHDBA279B 'Auctions and Contracts' (listed in the order that they appeared in class):

Morgan's Section

The following is a selection by Egan (Accepted or Rejected by Morgan):

• (A) Baye, Michael R., John Morgan, and Patrick Scholten (2006), "Information, Search, and Price Dispersion," Handbook of Economics and Information Systems (T. Hendershott, ed.), Elsevier Press, Amsterdam. link pdf
• (R) Nitzan, Shmuel (1994), "Modeling Rent Seeking Contests", European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 10(1), pages 41-60, May. link pdf
• (A) Ellison, Glenn, Fudenberg, Drew, and Möbius, Markus (2004), "Competing Auctions", Journal of the European Economic Association, Mar, Vol. 2 Issue 1, p30-66 link pdf
• (A) Caillaud, Bernard and Bruno Jullien (2003) "Chicken & Egg: Competition among Intermediation Service Providers", The RAND Journal of Economics, Vol. 34, No. 2. (Summer), pp. 309-328. link pdf
• (A) Grossman, Gene and Elhanan Helpman (2001), "Special Interest Politics", Chapters 4 and 5, MIT Press pdf
• (A) Dessein, Wouter (2002), "Authority and Communication in Organizations", The Review of Economic Studies, Vol. 69, No. 4. (Oct.), pp. 811-838. link pdf
• (A) Krishna, Vijay and John Morgan (2008), "Contracting for information under imperfect commitment", RAND Journal of Economics, Winter, Vol. 39, No. 4, pp. 905-925. link pdf
• (A) Hart, Oliver and John Moore (1988), "Incomplete Contracts and Renegotiation", Econometrica, Vol. 56, No. 4. (Jul.), pp. 755-785. link pdf
• (A) Aghion, Philippe, Mathias Dewatripont, and Patrick Rey (1994), "Renegotiation Design with Unverifiable Information", Econometrica, Vol. 62, No. 2. (Mar.), pp. 257-282. link pdf

Nitzan (1994) was replaced by the paper that will be used for the 2012 class:

• Konrad, Kai A. (2007), "Strategy in Contests-An Introduction", WZB-Markets and Politics Working Paper No. SP II 2007-01, link pdf

Morgan provided the following comment: "My question will take a model from one of these papers and change it in an interesting way. Reading these papers may or may not help you solve my question."

Tadelis' Section

The following is a complete list of the "key" (and required) readings from Steve's section:

• Holmstrom B., (1999) "Managerial Incentive Problems: A Dynamic Perspective," Review of Economic Studies, 66(1): 169-182 pdf
• Gibbons, R. and K.J. Murphy (1992), "Optimal Incentive Contracts in the Presence of Career Concerns: Theory and Evidence," Journal of Political Economy, 100(3): 468 505. pdf
• Diamond, D. (1989), "Reputation Acquisition in Debt Markets," Journal of Political Economy, 97(4): 828 862 pdf
• Kreps, D. (1990), "Corporate Culture and Economic Theory," in J. Alt and K. Shepsle, Eds. Perspectives on Positive Political Economy, Cambridge University Press (Book excerpts available through Google Books)
• Tadelis, S. (2001) "The Market for Reputations as an Incentive Mechanism," Journal of Political Economy 110(4):854-882 pdf
• Levin, Jonathan and Steven Tadelis (2008) "Contracting for Government Services: Theory and Evidence from U.S. Cities," forthcoming, Journal of Industrial Economics. pdf
• Williamson, Oliver E. (1971), "The Vertical Integration of Production: Market Failure Considerations," American Economic Review, 61:112-23. pdf
• Goldberg, Victor P. (1977) "Competitive Bidding and the Production of Precontract Information," Bell Journal of Economics, 8:250-261 pdf
• Banerjee, A. and Duflo E. (2000) "Reputation Effects and the Limits of Contracting: A Study of the Indian Software Industry," Quarterly Journal of Economics, 115:989-1018. pdf
• Forbes, Silke J. and Mara Lederman, (2009) "Adaptation and Vertical Integration in the Airline Industry," American Economic Review, forthcoming. pdf

The following papers (on empirics of reputation) were excluded by Egan:

• Cabral, Luis and Ali Hortacsu (2008), "Dynamics of Seller Reputation: Theory and Evidence from eBay" forthcoming, Journal of Industrial Economics pdf
• Jin, G. and P. Leslie (2009), "Reputational Incentives for Restaurant Hygiene", American Economic Journal: Microeconomics, 1(1): 237-67 (Supplemental Reading) pdf
• McDevitt, Ryan (2010), "Names and Reputations: An Empirical Analysis," mimeo, northwestern university pdf
• McDevitt, Ryan (2010), "A Business by Any Other Name: Firm Name Choice as a Signal of Firm Quality.," mimeo, northwestern university pdf