Related papers: Costly Verification in Collective Decisions
A principal who values an object allocates it to one or more agents. Agents learn private information (signals) from an information designer about the allocation payoff to the principal. Monetary transfer is not available but the principal…
We consider settings where an uninformed principal must hear arguments from two better-informed agents, corresponding to two possible courses of action that they argue for. The arguments are verifiable in the sense that the true state of…
A principal has $m$ identical objects to allocate among a group of $n$ agents. Objects are desirable and the principal's value of assigning an object to an agent is the agent's private information. The principal can verify up to $k$ agents,…
We consider a dynamic moral hazard problem between a principal and an agent, where the sole instrument the principal has to incentivize the agent is the disclosure of information. The principal aims at maximizing the (discounted) number of…
We consider the problem of a principal who needs to elicit the true worth of an object she owns from an agent who has a unique ability to compute this information. The correctness of the information cannot be verified by the principal, so…
We examine hypothesis testing within a principal-agent framework, where a strategic agent, holding private beliefs about the effectiveness of a product, submits data to a principal who decides on approval. The principal employs a hypothesis…
This paper studies a dynamic model of information acquisition, in which information might be secretly manipulated. A principal must choose between a safe action with known payoff and a risky action with uncertain payoff, favoring the safe…
We consider a principal agent project selection problem with asymmetric information. There are $N$ projects and the principal must select exactly one of them. Each project provides some profit to the principal and some payoff to the agent…
We analyze the optimal delegation problem between a principal and an agent, assuming that the latter has state-independent preferences. We demonstrate that if the principal is more risk-averse than the agent toward non-status quo options,…
A principal and an agent can launch a project under unanimous consent. Their individual payoffs from the project depend on an underlying state, and the agent privately knows his own preference. The principal can conduct a test to learn…
We study the design of voting mechanisms in a binary social choice environment where agents' cardinal valuations are independent but not necessarily identically distributed. The mechanism must be anonymous -- the outcome is invariant to…
A principal hires an agent to acquire soft information about an unknown state. Even though neither how the agent learns nor what the agent discovers are contractible, we show the principal is unconstrained as to what information the agent…
In this paper, we study belief elicitation about an uncertain future event, where the reports will affect a principal's decision. We study two problems that can arise in this setting: (1) Agents may have an interest in the outcome of the…
This paper studies delegation in a model of discrete choice. In the delegation problem, an uninformed principal must consult an informed agent to make a decision. Both the agent and principal have preferences over the decided-upon action…
A principal and $n\ge 2$ agents can launch a project if the principal proposes it and at least $k$ agents accept. Their individual payoffs from the project depend on an ex ante unknown state. The principal can conduct a test to learn about…
Decision-makers in high-stakes selection processes often face a fundamental choice: whether to make decisions themselves or to delegate authority to another entity whose incentives may only be partially aligned with their own. Such…
We consider the mechanism design problem of a principal allocating a single good to one of several agents without monetary transfers. Each agent desires the good and uses it to create value for the principal. We designate this value as the…
We investigate the mechanism design problem faced by a principal who hires \emph{multiple} agents to gather and report costly information. Then, the principal exploits the information to make an informed decision. We model this problem as a…
The relationship of policy choice by majority voting and by maximization of utilitarian welfare has long been discussed. I consider choice between a status quo and a proposed policy when persons have interpersonally comparable cardinal…
A principal must allocate a set of heterogeneous tasks (or objects) among multiple agents. The principal has preferences over the allocation. Each agent has preferences over which tasks they are assigned, which are their private…