Multiagent mechanism design without money
We consider a principal repeatedly allocating a single resource in each period to one of multiple agents, whose values are private, without relying on monetary payments over an infinite horizon with discounting. We design a dynamic mechanism that induces agents to report their values truthfully in each period via promises/threats of future favorable/unfavorable allocations. We show that our mechanism asymptotically achieves the first-best efficient allocation (the welfare-maximizing allocation as if values are public) as agents become more patient and provide sharp characterizations of convergence rates to first best as a function of the discount factor. In particular, in the case of two agents we prove that the convergence rate of our mechanism is optimal - that is, no other mechanism can converge faster to first best.
Duke Scholars
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Related Subject Headings
- Operations Research
- 3507 Strategy, management and organisational behaviour
- 1503 Business and Management
- 0802 Computation Theory and Mathematics
- 0102 Applied Mathematics
Citation
Published In
DOI
EISSN
ISSN
Publication Date
Volume
Issue
Start / End Page
Related Subject Headings
- Operations Research
- 3507 Strategy, management and organisational behaviour
- 1503 Business and Management
- 0802 Computation Theory and Mathematics
- 0102 Applied Mathematics