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Sweet Lemons: Mitigating Collusion in Organizations

Author

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  • Pollrich, Martin

    (University of Bonn)

  • von Negenborn, Colin

    (HU Berlin)

Abstract

This paper shows that the possibility of collusion between an agent and a supervisor imposes no restrictions on the set of implementable social choice functions (SCF) and associated payoff vectors. Any SCF and any payoff profile that are implementable if the supervisor′s information was public is also implementable when this information is private and collusion is possible. To implement a given SCF we propose a one-sided mechanism that endogenously creates private information for the supervisor vis-à-vis the agent, and conditions both players′ payoffs on this endogenous information. We show that in such a mechanism all collusive side-bargaining fails, similar to the trade failure in Akerlof′s (1970) car market and in models of bilateral trade.

Suggested Citation

  • Pollrich, Martin & von Negenborn, Colin, 2018. "Sweet Lemons: Mitigating Collusion in Organizations," Rationality and Competition Discussion Paper Series 100, CRC TRR 190 Rationality and Competition.
    • Handle: RePEc:rco:dpaper:100
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. Mookherjee, Dilip & Tsumagari, Masatoshi, 2023. "Regulatory mechanism design with extortionary collusion," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 208(C).
    2. Tan, Teck Yong, 2023. "Optimal transparency of monitoring capability," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 209(C).

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    mechanism design; collusion; asymmetric information; correlation;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D82 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Asymmetric and Private Information; Mechanism Design
    • D83 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Search; Learning; Information and Knowledge; Communication; Belief; Unawareness
    • L51 - Industrial Organization - - Regulation and Industrial Policy - - - Economics of Regulation

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