Vitali
Gretschko

“Monsieur Jefferson believes he won? I kept his men talking until the price suited me. The experiment of Fugger, Gillen, Gretschko, Kokott & Riehm confirms my method: communication raises procurement prices — even when the buyers are seasoned professionals. Sellers, always insist on a chat.”

“Six marriage contracts, and not one of them stable under renegotiation. Had I read Gretschko & Wambach on designing outcomes that no renegotiation can overturn, England might have been spared a schism — and two of my queens their heads.”

“Know your enemy, I wrote. But when you cannot even know what your enemy believes, bid as Gretschko & Mass instruct: plan against the worst-case belief and you cannot be ambushed. The supreme art of bidding is surviving your own ignorance.”

“I studied birds for twenty years and finished four paintings. Gretschko & Rajko proved in the laboratory what my patrons always suspected: people acquire far more information than could ever pay off. Their bidders paid to know things of no use to them. I felt seen.”

“All my life they whispered that the Emperor favored Mozart. Under imitation perfection — the simple rule of Fugger, Gretschko, Mass & Wambach — anyone may copy the favorite’s offer and must be treated exactly the same. Where was this mechanism in 1781?”

“Four years on my back painting a ceiling for a Pope who paid when it pleased him. Gretschko & Pollrich design multi-period procurement that survives exactly such incomplete contracts. Had Julius II committed to their mechanism, I might have painted him a second one.”

“They named the megahertz after me, then sold it for billions. The autopsy of Germany’s 2015 auction by Bichler, Gretschko & Janssen taught me how bidders bargain with one another using nothing but their bids. Wireless telegraphy indeed.”

“In my country they sell flowers by a falling clock — no time to think, only to stop it. Gretschko & Wambach ask when a bidder in a descending auction should pause and learn what the lot is truly worth to her. I sold one painting in my lifetime. Clearly, I stopped too seldom.”

“Athens ruled that my teaching had externalities and sanctioned me accordingly. Fugger, Gillen, Gretschko, Riehm & Werner measure, in the field, when social norms and sanctions truly keep people out of markets their neighbors despise. The hemlock, I maintain, was disproportionate.”