Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/126629 
Year of Publication: 
2014
Series/Report no.: 
Discussion Papers No. 14-01
Publisher: 
University of Bern, Department of Economics, Bern
Abstract: 
This paper studies the optimal mechanisms for a seller with imperfect commitment who puts up for sale one individual unit per period to a single buyer in a dynamic game. The buyer's willingness to pay remains constant over time and is his private information. In this setting, the seller cannot achieve greater payoffs than those obtained by posting a price in each period. However, price posting is not optimal if the buyer is sufficiently impatient relative to the seller. It is also proved that a mechanism à la Goethe (see Moldovanu and Tieztel 1998) is almost optimal.
Subjects: 
asymmetric information
imperfect commitment
dynamics
mechanism design
non-optimality of posting prices
JEL: 
D82
Document Type: 
Working Paper

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