Topics in Implementation Theory and Mechanism Design

该项目为实施理论做出了贡献，这是近十年来经济理论中最重要的领域之一。执行理论非常笼统地告诉我们，通过激励契约，什么能做到，什么不能做到。本项目追求三个方向：动态或重复环境中的机制设计，将实施理论的一般结果应用于特定的经济环境，以及对代理人选择机制的过程进行理论建模。第一部分将完全实施的基本模型扩展到动态设置，即分配和回报发生在一系列时期的设置。第二部分将实施理论应用于公共物品供给、议价和拍卖问题。第三部分探讨了机制如何选择的问题。特别是，如果选择何种机制是由参与者自己在中间阶段做出的决定，那么选择机制的实际过程可能会揭示信息。本项目研究了这种信息传递对机制选择的影响。它将此应用于研究不同公司的卡特尔如何共享信息和串通。实施理论的进步是重要的，因为这一理论为分析人员研究制度设计提供了强有力的分析工具。在这一领域的早期工作产生了一般的不可能性定理，证明了某些基本的社会目标无法调和，权衡是必要的。调查人员和其他人最近的工作已经获得了关于经济制度变化可以实现什么的显著结果。通过将这些模型扩展到动态环境中，研究者将能够严格地研究制度随时间演变的经济含义。

This project contributes to implementation theory, one of the most important areas in the last ten years of economic theory. Implementation theory tells us in very general terms what can and cannot be accomplished through incentive contracts. This project pursues three directions: mechanism design in dynamic or repeated environments, application of general results of implementation theory to specific economic settings, and theoretical modelling of processes by which agents choose a mechanism. The first part extends the basic model of full implementation to dynamic settings, i.e., settings in which allocations and payoffs occur over a sequence of periods. The second part applies implementation theory to problems of public goods provision, bargaining, and auctions. The third part explores the question of how mechanisms are selected. In particular, if the decision of which mechanism to play is made by the players themselves at the interim stage, then the actual process of selecting the mechanism may reveal information. The project studies the effects of this information transmission on mechanism choice. It applies this to the study of how cartels of diverse firms share information and collude. Advances in implementation theory are important because this theory provides analysts with powerful analytical tools for studying institutional design. The early work in this field resulted in general impossibility theorems, proofs that certain basic societal goals could not be reconciled and that trade-offs were necessary. Recent work by the investigators and others have obtained remarkable results about what can be accomplished by changes in economic institutions. By extending these models to a dynamic setting, the investigators will be able to rigorously study the economic implications of the evolution of institutions over time.