IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/jeborg/v246y2026ics0167268126001526.html

Competing mechanisms in games played through agents: Theory and experiment

Author

Listed:
  • Han, Seungjin
  • Leal, Andrew

Abstract

This paper proposes Competing Mechanism Games Played Through Agents (CMGPTA), an extension of GPTA (Prat and Rustichini, 2003), where competing principals can offer arbitrary mechanisms that specify a transfer schedule for each agent conditional on all agents’ messages. We identify the set of equilibrium allocations using deviator-reporting mechanisms (DRMs) on the path and single transfer schedules off the path. We design a lab experiment implementing DRMs. A majority of the time, agents tell the truth on the identity of a deviating principal, despite potential gains from (tacit) collusion on false reports. As the game progresses, coordination on both truthful and false reports improves. The average predicted probability of collusion on false reports across groups increased from about 9% at the beginning of the experiment to just under 20% by the end. However, group heterogeneity is significant.

Suggested Citation

  • Han, Seungjin & Leal, Andrew, 2026. "Competing mechanisms in games played through agents: Theory and experiment," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 246(C).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:jeborg:v:246:y:2026:i:c:s0167268126001526
    DOI: 10.1016/j.jebo.2026.107566
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0167268126001526
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.jebo.2026.107566?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

    for a different version of it.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    JEL classification:

    • C92 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Design of Experiments - - - Laboratory, Group Behavior
    • D43 - Microeconomics - - Market Structure, Pricing, and Design - - - Oligopoly and Other Forms of Market Imperfection
    • D82 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Asymmetric and Private Information; Mechanism Design
    • D86 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Economics of Contract Law

    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:jeborg:v:246:y:2026:i:c:s0167268126001526. 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.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using 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/jebo .

    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.