IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/jetheo/v201y2022ics0022053122000333.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Principal-agent VCG contracts

Author

Listed:
  • Lavi, Ron
  • Shamash, Elisheva S.

Abstract

We study a complete information game with multiple principals and multiple common agents. Each agent takes an action that can affect the payoffs of all principals. Prat and Rustichini (2003) who introduce this model assume classic contracts: each principal offers monetary transfers to each agent conditional on the action taken by the agent. We define VCG contracts in which the monetary transfers to each agent additionally depend on all principals' offers, and study its effect on the existence of efficient pure subgame perfect equilibrium outcomes. Using a necessary and sufficient condition for the existence of a pure subgame perfect equilibrium (pure SPE) with VCG contracts, which we develop, we show that the class of instances that admit an efficient pure SPE with VCG contracts strictly contains the class of instances that admit an efficient pure SPE with classic contracts. In addition, the difference between the former class and the class of instances that admit a ‘weakly truthful’ SPE with classic contracts has positive measure. Although VCG contracts broaden the existence of pure subgame perfect equilibria, we show that the worst case welfare loss in a pure SPE outcome, over all games with any fixed M≥2 number of principals, is the same for both VCG contracts and classic contracts.

Suggested Citation

  • Lavi, Ron & Shamash, Elisheva S., 2022. "Principal-agent VCG contracts," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 201(C).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:jetheo:v:201:y:2022:i:c:s0022053122000333
    DOI: 10.1016/j.jet.2022.105443
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0022053122000333
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.jet.2022.105443?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Han, Seungjin, 2015. "Robust competitive auctions," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 136(C), pages 207-210.
    2. B. Douglas Bernheim & Michael D. Whinston, 1986. "Menu Auctions, Resource Allocation, and Economic Influence," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 101(1), pages 1-31.
    3. Michael Peters, 1997. "A Competitive Distribution of Auctions," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 64(1), pages 97-123.
    4. Michael Peters, 2014. "Competing mechanisms," Canadian Journal of Economics/Revue canadienne d'économique, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 47(2), pages 373-397, May.
    5. Bikhchandani, Sushil, 1999. "Auctions of Heterogeneous Objects," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 26(2), pages 193-220, January.
    6. Andrea Prat & Aldo Rustichini, 2003. "Games Played Through Agents," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 71(4), pages 989-1026, July.
    7. Michael Peters, 2014. "Competing mechanisms," Canadian Journal of Economics, Canadian Economics Association, vol. 47(2), pages 373-397, May.
    8. Michael Peters & Balázs Szentes, 2012. "Definable and Contractible Contracts," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 80(1), pages 363-411, January.
    9. Fu, Hu & Kleinberg, Robert & Lavi, Ron & Smorodinsky, Rann, 2017. "Stability and auctions in labor markets with job security," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 154(C), pages 55-58.
    10. Szentes, Balázs, 2015. "Contractible contracts in common agency problems," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 66071, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    11. Han, Seungjin, 2007. "Strongly robust equilibrium and competing-mechanism games," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 137(1), pages 610-626, November.
    12. Balázs Szentes, 2015. "Contractible Contracts in Common Agency Problems," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 82(1), pages 391-422.
    13. Gabriel Carroll, 2015. "Robustness and Linear Contracts," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 105(2), pages 536-563, February.
    14. Peters, Michael, 2014. "Competing Mechanisms," Microeconomics.ca working papers michael_peters-2014-7, Vancouver School of Economics, revised 19 Feb 2014.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Attar, Andrea & Campioni, Eloisa & Piaser, Gwenaël, 2019. "Private communication in competing mechanism games," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 183(C), pages 258-283.
    2. Attar, Andrea & Campioni, Eloisa & Mariotti, Thomas & Piaser, Gwenaël, 2021. "Competing mechanisms and folk theorems: Two examples," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 125(C), pages 79-93.
    3. Attar, Andrea & Campioni, Eloisa & Piaser, Gwenaël, 2018. "On competing mechanisms under exclusive competition," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 111(C), pages 1-15.
    4. Attar, Andrea & Campioni, Eloisa & Mariotti, Thomas & Pavan, Alessandro, 2021. "Keeping the Agents in the Dark: Private Disclosures in Competing Mechanisms," TSE Working Papers 21-1227, Toulouse School of Economics (TSE), revised Dec 2023.
    5. Li, Anqi & Xing, Yiqing, 2020. "Intermediated implementation," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 123(C).
    6. Seungjin Han & Siyang Xiong, 2021. "A Unified Approach to Equilibrium Analysis in Competing Mechanism Games," Department of Economics Working Papers 2021-09, McMaster University.
    7. Peters, Michael, 2015. "Reciprocal contracting," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 158(PA), pages 102-126.
    8. Juan I. Block & David K. Levine, 2016. "Codes of conduct, private information and repeated games," International Journal of Game Theory, Springer;Game Theory Society, vol. 45(4), pages 971-984, November.
    9. David Martimort & Aggey Semenov & Lars Stole, 2016. "A Complete Characterization of Equilibria in Common Agency Screening Games," Working Papers 1618E, University of Ottawa, Department of Economics.
    10. Arribas, I. & Urbano, A., 2017. "Multiproduct trading with a common agent under complete information: Existence and characterization of Nash equilibrium," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 167(C), pages 14-38.
    11. Patrick Hummel, 2018. "How do selling mechanisms affect profits, surplus, capacity and prices with unknown demand?," Canadian Journal of Economics/Revue canadienne d'économique, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 51(1), pages 94-126, February.
    12. Ahmad Peivandi & Rakesh V. Vohra, 2021. "Instability of Centralized Markets," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 89(1), pages 163-179, January.
    13. Philippe Jehiel & Laurent Lamy, 2018. "A Mechanism Design Approach to the Tiebout Hypothesis," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 126(2), pages 735-760.
    14. Auster, Sarah & Gottardi, Piero, 2019. "Competing mechanisms in markets for lemons," Theoretical Economics, Econometric Society, vol. 14(3), July.
    15. Han Seungjin, 2016. "Sellers’ Implicit Collusion in Directed Search Markets," The B.E. Journal of Theoretical Economics, De Gruyter, vol. 16(2), pages 711-738, June.
    16. Per Fredriksson & Daniel Millimet, 2007. "Legislative Organization and Pollution Taxation," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 131(1), pages 217-242, April.
    17. Han, Seungjin, 2015. "Robust competitive auctions," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 136(C), pages 207-210.
    18. Andrea Attar & Catherine Casamatta & Arnold Chassagnon & Jean-Paul Décamps, 2019. "Multiple Lenders, Strategic Default, and Covenants," American Economic Journal: Microeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 11(2), pages 98-130, May.
    19. Andrea Attar & Eloisa Campioni & Gwenaël Piaser & Uday Rajan, 2012. "Competing mechanism games of moral hazard: communication and robustness," Review of Economic Design, Springer;Society for Economic Design, vol. 16(4), pages 283-296, December.
    20. Mohammad Akbarpour & Shengwu Li, 2020. "Credible Auctions: A Trilemma," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 88(2), pages 425-467, March.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Principal-agent; Games played through agents; Contractible contracts; VCG;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D86 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Economics of Contract Law
    • D82 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Asymmetric and Private Information; Mechanism Design
    • C72 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Game Theory and Bargaining Theory - - - Noncooperative Games

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:jetheo:v:201:y:2022:i:c:s0022053122000333. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/inca/622869 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.