Nicolas Querou

Pricing in social networks

We analyze the problem of optimal monopoly pricing in social networks where agents care about consumption or prices of their neighbors. We characterize the relation between optimal prices and consumersʼ centrality in the social network. This relation depends on the market structure (monopoly vs. oligopoly) and on the type of externalities (consumption versus price). We identify two situations where the monopolist does not discriminate across nodes in the network (linear monopoly with consumption externalities and local monopolies with price externalities). We also analyze the robustness of the analysis with respect to changes in demand, and the introduction of bargaining between the monopolist and the consumer.

Smooth multibidding mechanisms

We propose a smooth multibidding mechanism for environments where a group of agents have to choose one out of several projects. Our proposal is related to the multibidding mechanism (Perez-Castrillo and Wettstein, 2002) but it is “smoother” in the sense that small variations in an agent’s bids do not lead to dramatic changes in the probability of selecting a project. This mechanism is shown to possess several interesting properties. First, the equilibrium outcome is unique. Second, it ensures an equal sharing of the surplus that it induces. Finally, it enables reaching an outcome as close to efficiency as is desired.