Self-Confirming Mechanisms

Fuente: arXiv
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Autores principales: Feng, Zhiming, Liu, Qingmin
Formato: Preprint
Publicado: 2026
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author Feng, Zhiming
Liu, Qingmin
author_facet Feng, Zhiming
Liu, Qingmin
contents This paper studies mechanism design environments in which the designer does not know the distribution of agents' private information a priori and instead learns from agents' behavior induced by the mechanism itself. We formalize a notion of self-confirming mechanisms and a refinement thereof, capturing the idea that an equilibrium mechanism is optimal given the designer's belief and that this belief is consistent with the information produced by the mechanism. We establish a fictitious revelation principle, showing that any incentive-compatible mechanism can be represented as a direct mechanism with filtered type reports that preserve the original mechanism's informational content. Applying the framework to a monopoly problem, we show that, subject to an equilibrium refinement, dominant-strategy self-confirming mechanisms are exactly posted-price mechanisms with locally revenue-maximizing prices.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2603_12532
institution arXiv
publishDate 2026
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Self-Confirming Mechanisms
Feng, Zhiming
Liu, Qingmin
Theoretical Economics
This paper studies mechanism design environments in which the designer does not know the distribution of agents' private information a priori and instead learns from agents' behavior induced by the mechanism itself. We formalize a notion of self-confirming mechanisms and a refinement thereof, capturing the idea that an equilibrium mechanism is optimal given the designer's belief and that this belief is consistent with the information produced by the mechanism. We establish a fictitious revelation principle, showing that any incentive-compatible mechanism can be represented as a direct mechanism with filtered type reports that preserve the original mechanism's informational content. Applying the framework to a monopoly problem, we show that, subject to an equilibrium refinement, dominant-strategy self-confirming mechanisms are exactly posted-price mechanisms with locally revenue-maximizing prices.
title Self-Confirming Mechanisms
topic Theoretical Economics
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2603.12532