odels of bilateral contracting, such as the canonical holdup model, typically assume that third parties are not available. Given this assumption, the equilibrium outcome is not first-best efficient if contracts can be renegotiated. To be more specific, suppose an architect and a builder must cooperate to build a building. The quality of the building will depend on three things: the quality of t...

Many security protocols hypothesize the existence of a trusted third party (TTP) to ease handling of computation and data too sensitive for the other parties involved. Subsequent discussion usually dismisses these protocols as hypothetical or impractical, under the assumption that trusted third parties cannot exist. However, the last decade has seen the emergence of hardware-based devices that,...