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Common Agency with Non-Delegation or Imperfect Commitment

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  • Seungjin Han
  • Siyang Xiong

Abstract

In classical contract theory, we usually impose two assumptions: delegated contracts and perfect commitment. While the second assumption is demanding, the first one suffers no loss of generality. Following this tradition, current common-agency models impose delegated contracts and perfect commitment. We first show that non-delegated contracts expand the set of equilibrium outcomes under common agency. Furthermore, the powerful menu theorem for common agency (Peters (2001) and Martimort and Stole (2002)}) fails for either non-delegated contracts or imperfect commitment. We identify canonical contracts in such environments, and re-establish generalized menu theorems. Given imperfect commitment, our results for common-agency models are analogous to those in Bester and Strausz (2001) and Doval and Skreta (2012) for the classical contract theory, which re-establish the revelation principle.

Suggested Citation

  • Seungjin Han & Siyang Xiong, 2023. "Common Agency with Non-Delegation or Imperfect Commitment," Papers 2309.11595, arXiv.org.
    • Handle: RePEc:arx:papers:2309.11595
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. Bester, Helmut & Strausz, Roland, 2000. "Imperfect commitment and the revelation principle: the multi-agent case," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 69(2), pages 165-171, November.
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    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • C79 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Game Theory and Bargaining Theory - - - Other
    • D82 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Asymmetric and Private Information; Mechanism Design

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