Competitive Nonlinear Pricing under Adverse Selection

Abstract

This article surveys recent attempts at characterizing competitive allocations under adverse selection when each informed agent can privately trade with several uninformed parties: that is, trade is nonexclusive. We rst show that requiring market outcomes to be robust to entry selects a unique candidate allocation, which involves cross-subsidies. We then study how to implement this allocation as the equilibrium outcome of a game in which the uninformed parties, acting as principals, compete by making oers to the informed agents. We show that equilibria typically fail to exist in competitive- screening games, in which these oers are simultaneous. We nally explore alternative extensive forms, and show that the candidate allocation can be implemented through a discriminatory ascending auction. These results yield sharp predictions for competitive nonexclusive markets.

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Reference

Andrea Attar, Thomas Mariotti, and François Salanié, “Competitive Nonlinear Pricing under Adverse Selection”, TSE Working Paper, n. 21-1201, April 2021, revised August 2022.