Dynamic Mechanism Design with Capacity Constraint

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: He, Wei
• 署名单位: Chinese University of Hong Kong
• 刊物名称: OPERATIONS RESEARCH
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0030-364X
• DOI: 10.1287/opre.2023.2449
• 发表日期: 2023
• 页码: 1610-1618
• 关键词: Dynamic mechanism design; Capacity constraint; DEADLINE; EFFICIENCY

摘要

We study a project assignment problem, where a principal needs to assign multiple projects to an agent. The agent is privately informed about the cost, which could be high or low. The agent's type evolves stochastically over time. We fully characterize the optimal mechanism via a sequence of deadlines and show that the presence of the capacity constraint reduces the principal's payoff and delays the assignment of projects. In particular, as the number of projects increases, the limit optimal contract may be strictly bounded away from the optimal contract when there are infinitely many projects, and the principal's payoff may be strictly below that in the setting without the capacity constraint.