Competing Mechanisms in Games Played Through Agents: Theory and Experiment

Fuente: arXiv
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Auteurs principaux: Han, Seungjin, Leal, Andrew
Format: Preprint
Publié: 2024
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author Han, Seungjin
Leal, Andrew
author_facet Han, Seungjin
Leal, Andrew
contents This paper proposes Competing Mechanism Games Played Through Agent (CMGPTA), an extension of the GPTA (Prat and Rustichini (2003)), where a Principal can offer any arbitrary mechanism that specifies a transfer schedule for each agent conditional on all Agents' messages. We identify the set of equilibrium allocations using deviator-reporting mechanisms (DRMs) on the path and single transfer schedules off the path. We design a lab experiment implementing DRMs. We observe that implemented outcomes are efficient more often than random. A majority of the time, Agents do tell the truth on the identity of a deviating Principal, despite potential gains from (tacit) collusion on false reports. As play progresses, Agents learn to play with their counterparty Agent with the average predicted probability of collusion on false reports across groups increasing from about 9% at the beginning of the experiment to just under 20% by the end. However, group heterogeneity is significant.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2403_03317
institution arXiv
publishDate 2024
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Competing Mechanisms in Games Played Through Agents: Theory and Experiment
Han, Seungjin
Leal, Andrew
Theoretical Economics
This paper proposes Competing Mechanism Games Played Through Agent (CMGPTA), an extension of the GPTA (Prat and Rustichini (2003)), where a Principal can offer any arbitrary mechanism that specifies a transfer schedule for each agent conditional on all Agents' messages. We identify the set of equilibrium allocations using deviator-reporting mechanisms (DRMs) on the path and single transfer schedules off the path. We design a lab experiment implementing DRMs. We observe that implemented outcomes are efficient more often than random. A majority of the time, Agents do tell the truth on the identity of a deviating Principal, despite potential gains from (tacit) collusion on false reports. As play progresses, Agents learn to play with their counterparty Agent with the average predicted probability of collusion on false reports across groups increasing from about 9% at the beginning of the experiment to just under 20% by the end. However, group heterogeneity is significant.
title Competing Mechanisms in Games Played Through Agents: Theory and Experiment
topic Theoretical Economics
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2403.03317