William Fuchs

Government Interventions in a Dynamic Market with Adverse Selection

We study government interventions in a dynamic market with asymmetric information. We show that if the government can only carry out budget-neutral policies, introducing a short tax-exempt trading window followed by short-lived positive taxes creates a Pareto improvement in the market. Under a su¢ cient condition on the shape of the gains from trade and the distribution of asset values, we show that, even when not requiring budget-neutrality, it is optimal to subsidize trades only at time zero while imposing prohibitively high taxes afterwards. Subsidies can greatly enhance welfare but they can also be detrimental if they are provided with delay.

Costs and Benefits of Dynamic Trading in a Lemons Market

We study a dynamic market with asymmetric information that creates the lemons problem. We compare efficiency of the market under different assumptions about the timing of trade. We identify positive and negative aspects of dynamic trading, describe the optimal market design under regularity conditions and show that continuous-time trading can be always improved upon.

Transparency and Distressed Sales Under Asymmetric Information

We analyze price transparency in a dynamic market with private information and correlated values. Uninformed buyers compete inter- and intra-temporarily for a good sold by an informed seller suffering a liquidity shock. We contrast public versus private price offers. In a two-period case all equilibria with private offers have more trade than any equilibrium with public offers; under some additional conditions we show Pareto-dominance of the private-offers equilibria. If a failure to trade by the deadline results in an efficiency loss, public offers can induce a market breakdown before the deadline, while trade never stops with private offers.

Bridging the gap: Bargaining with interdependent values

We study dynamic bargaining with asymmetric information and interdependent values. We base our analysis on the equilibria characterized by Deneckere and Liang (2006) for the gap case. We show that as the gap between the cost and value of the weakest type shrinks to zero, the continuous time limit of equilibria changes dramatically from rare bursts of trade with long periods of inactivity to smooth screening over time. In the double limit prices are independent of the shape of the distribution of values. When the uninformed agentʼs ability to commit to prices disappears so do her rents, yet trade still exhibits delay.

Information Spillovers in Asset Markets with Correlated Values

We study information spillovers in a dynamic setting with privately informed traders and correlated asset values. A trade of one asset (or lack thereof) can provide information about the value of other assets. The information content of trading behavior is endogenously determined in equilibrium. We show that this endogeneity leads to multiple equilibria when the correlation between asset values is sufficiently high. The equilibria are ranked in terms of both trade volume and efficiency. We study the implications for policies that target market transparency as well as the markets ability to aggregate information. Total welfare is higher in any equilibrium of a fully transparent market than in a fully opaque one. However, both welfare and trading activity can decrease in the degree of market transparency. If traders have asymmetric access to transaction data, transparency levels the playing field, reduces the rents of more informed traders, but may also reduce total welfare. Moreover, even in a fully transparent market, information is not necessarily aggregated as the number of informed traders becomes arbitrarily large.

Information Aggregation in Dynamic Markets with Adverse Selection

How effectively does a decentralized marketplace aggregate information that is dis-persed throughout the economy? We study this question in a dynamic setting, in which sellers have private information that is correlated with an unobservable aggregate state. We first characterize equilibria with an arbitrary (but finite) number of informed sellers. A common feature is that each seller’s trading behavior provides an informative and con-ditionally independent signal about the aggregate state. We then ask whether the state is revealed as the number of informed sellers goes to infinity. Perhaps surprisingly, the answer is no. We provide conditions under which the amount of information revealed is necessarily bounded and does not reveal the aggregate state. When these conditions are violated, there may be coexistence of equilibria that lead to full revelation with those that do not. We discuss the implications for policies meant to enhance information dissemination in markets.How effectively does a decentralized marketplace aggregate information that is dispersed throughout the economy? We study this question in a dynamic setting where sellers have private information that is correlated with an unobservable aggregate state. In any equilibrium, each seller’s trading behavior provides an informative and conditionally independent signal about the aggregate state. We ask whether the state is revealed as the number of informed traders grows large. Surprisingly, the answer is no; we provide conditions under which information aggregation necessarily fails. In another region of the parameter space, aggregating and non-aggregating equilibria coexist. We solve for the optimal information policy of a constrained social planner who observes trading behavior and chooses what information to reveal. We show that non-aggregating equilibria are always constrained inefficient. The optimal information policy Pareto improves upon the laissez-faire outcome by concealing information about trading volume when it is sufficiently high.

Optimal Arrangements for Distribution in Developing Markets: Theory and Evidence

A large literature examines demand-side barriers to product adoption. In this paper, we examine supply-side barriers in a setting with limited contract enforcement. We model the relationship between a distributor and its credit-constrained vendors. We show that the optimal self-enforcing arrangement can be implemented by providing vendors with a line of credit and the option to buy additional units at a fixed price. Moreover, the structure of this arrangement is optimal both for profit-maximizing firms and for non-profit organizations with limited resources. We test the arrangement using a field experiment in rural Uganda. We find that the model-implied optimal arrangement increased distribution significantly compared to a standard contract. However, growth was lower than predicted by the model because vendors (i) were unwilling to extend credit to customers, and (ii) did not have access to a reliable savings technology. We discuss several recent technological innovations that help to overcome both of these challenges.