Essays on Economic Design

Abstract

This dissertation presents three essays in microeconomic theory. The essays center on design and implementation questions around privacy, transparency, and equity, respectively. Chapter 1 studies privacy-preserving implementations of choice rules. In particular, this chapter defines contextual privacy: a notion of privacy preservation for mechanism design, which requires that the designer not learn more than it needs to know to implement the choice rule. Chapter 2 studies a moral hazard model in which the principal can choose not to be transparent. That is, the principal can choose not to articulate to the agent how an incentive contract depends on verifiable features of the environment. The result is a joint contract and information design problem in which the information design aspect changes the principal’s ability to extract surplus from agents. Chapter 3 considers a social planner who designs elements of the environment in which two parties bargain over the terms of a contract. The social planner has concerns about the efficiency of the contract, as well as the equity of the resulting distribution of surplus and the externalities on other parties. Chapters 1 and 2 are coauthored with Andreas Haupt. Chapter 3 is coauthored with Benjamin Niswonger.