On the Foundations of Ex Post Incentive-Compatible Mechanisms

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Yamashita, Takuro; Zhu, Shuguang
• 署名单位: Universite de Toulouse; Shanghai University of Finance & Economics
• 刊物名称: AMERICAN ECONOMIC JOURNAL-MICROECONOMICS
• ISSN/ISSBN: 1945-7669
• DOI: 10.1257/mic.20200174
• 发表日期: 2022
• 页码: 494-514
• 关键词: Contracts

摘要

This paper considers an interdependent-value robust mechanism design problem, where the principal has little knowledge about the agent's belief. Although ex post incentive-compatible (EPIC) mechanisms can implement allocations without any knowledge about the agent's belief, we show that, under a certain condition (order-reversing interdependence), there exists a non-EPIC mecha-nism that achieves a strictly higher expected revenue than any EPIC mechanism given whatever (admissible) belief structure the agent may enjoy. Conversely, with sufficiently small interdependence, such a non-EPIC mechanism does not exist: for some (admissible) belief structure, an EPIC mechanism achieves the highest expected reve-nue. (JEL D82, D83)