Related papers: Indicator Choice in Pay-for-Performance
We introduce a novel model of contracts with combinatorial actions that accounts for sequential and adaptive agent behavior. As in the standard model, a principal delegates the execution of a costly project to an agent. There are $n$…
We study a Bayesian persuasion problem with externalities. In this model, a principal sends signals to inform multiple agents about the state of the world. Simultaneously, due to the existence of externalities in the agents' utilities, the…
We study a setting in which a principal selects an agent to execute a collection of tasks according to a specified priority sequence. Agents, however, have their own individual priority sequences according to which they wish to execute the…
We study how to optimally design selection mechanisms, accounting for agents' investment incentives. A principal wishes to allocate a resource of homogeneous quality to a heterogeneous population of agents. The principal commits to a…
We study a general class of Principal-Agent problems in continuous time under hidden action. By formulating the model as a coupled stochastic optimal control problem we are able to find a set of necessary conditions characterizing optimal…
When multiple informative equilibria are possible in a general cheap talk game, how much information can a principal guarantee herself? To answer this question, I define the notion of worst-case implementation-implementation via the worst…
We consider a hidden-action principal-agent model, in which actions require different amounts of effort, and the agent privately knows his ability that determines his cost of effort. We show that linear contracts admit approximation…
A principal uses payments conditioned on stochastic outcomes of a team project to elicit costly effort from the team members. We develop a multi-agent generalization of a classic first-order approach to contract optimization by leveraging…
A principal must decide between two options. Which one she prefers depends on the private information of two agents. One agent always prefers the first option; the other always prefers the second. Transfers are infeasible. One application…
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 incentivized information acquisition problem, where a principal hires an agent to gather information on her behalf. Such a problem is modeled as a Stackelberg game between the principal and the agent, where the principal…
The hidden-action model captures a fundamental problem of principal-agent theory and provides an optimal sharing rule when only the outcome but not the effort can be observed. However, the hidden-action model builds on various explicit and…
We consider a moral hazard problem with multiple principals in a continuous-time model. The agent can only work exclusively for one principal at a given time, so faces an optimal switching problem. Using a randomized formulation, we manage…
Recently, Frazier et al. proposed a natural model for crowdsourced exploration of different a priori unknown options: a principal is interested in the long-term welfare of a population of agents who arrive one by one in a multi-armed bandit…
We study a model of delegation in which a principal takes a multidimensional action and an agent has private information about a multidimensional state of the world. The principal can design any direct mechanism, including stochastic ones.…
We consider a principal-agent problem where the agent may privately choose to acquire relevant information prior to taking a hidden action. This model generalizes two special cases: a classic moral hazard setting, and a more recently…
In a framework close to the one developed by Holmstr\"om and Milgrom [44], we study the optimal contracting scheme between a Principal and several Agents. Each hired Agent is in charge of one project, and can make efforts towards managing…
We consider the information design problem in spatial resource competition settings. Agents gather at a location deciding whether to move to another location for possibly higher level of resources, and the utility each agent gets by moving…
In the principal-agent problem formulated by Myerson'82, agents have private information (type) and make private decisions (action), both of which are unobservable to the principal. Myerson pointed out an elegant linear programming solution…
We initiate the study of online contracts, which integrate the game-theoretic considerations of economic contract theory, with the algorithmic and informational challenges of online algorithm design. Our starting point is the classic online…