This dissertation studies the role of asymmetric information in the hold-up problem and consists of three chapters.; Chapter 1 incorporates an information structure with partial information into the canonical hold-up problem. It characterizes explicitly the impact of asymmetric information on the hold-up problem: the tension between ex ante efficiency (the "information rent" effect) and ex post efficiency (the "bargaining disagreement" effect). The optimal information structure is further identified: with one-shot bargaining, it occurs at an intermediate level of information asymmetry; when there is repeated bargaining, it is attained with perfect asymmetry.; Chapter 2 generalizes the static model in the preceding chapter by allowing for any noisy information structures. It establishes the following properties regarding the optimal information structures: (i) they consist solely of informative signals; (ii) they do not induce "bargaining disagreement" in equilibrium; (iii) for some simple cases, they are either triangular or diagonal, and the monotone likelihood ratio property emerges endogenously.; Chapter 3 complements the previous chapters by characterizing the optimal trading mechanism of the celebrated bilateral-trading problem with ex ante investment. It shows how this mechanism is generally distorted in order to induce investment; however, the expected payoffs at the bottom always remain zero. Furthermore, when the investment constraint is binding, some types necessarily expect more trade while others expect less, relative to the absence of this constraint. Despite the distortion, the investment constraint may actually render the overall trading area bigger.; The results of this dissertation provide a basis for institutional design in settings where the hold-up problem arises in the presence of private information, and shed light on the robustness of existing incomplete-contract models.
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