IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/arx/papers/2510.07994.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

The (No) Value of Commitment

Author

Listed:
  • Nathan Hancart

Abstract

I provide a sufficient condition under which a principal does not benefit from committing to a mechanism in economic models represented by a maximisation problem under constraints. These problems include mechanism design, principal-agent models or sender-receiver games. In principal-agent problems, this condition holds if the agent has a finite strategy space and the principal's value function is continuous in the mechanism.

Suggested Citation

  • Nathan Hancart, 2025. "The (No) Value of Commitment," Papers 2510.07994, arXiv.org.
    • Handle: RePEc:arx:papers:2510.07994
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://arxiv.org/pdf/2510.07994
    File Function: Latest version
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. , & ,, 2006. "A study in the pragmatics of persuasion: a game theoretical approach," Theoretical Economics, Econometric Society, vol. 1(4), pages 395-410, December.
    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. Winand Emons & Claude Fluet, 2019. "Strategic communication with reporting costs," Theory and Decision, Springer, vol. 87(3), pages 341-363, October.
    2. Evans, R. & Reiche, S., 2022. "When is a Contrarian Adviser Optimal?," Cambridge Working Papers in Economics 2222, Faculty of Economics, University of Cambridge.
    3. Sergiu Hart & Ilan Kremer & Motty Perry, 2017. "Evidence Games: Truth and Commitment," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 107(3), pages 690-713, March.
    4. Strausz, Roland, 2017. "Mechanism Design with Partially Verifiable Information," Rationality and Competition Discussion Paper Series 45, CRC TRR 190 Rationality and Competition.
    5. Gregorio Curello & Ludvig Sinander, 2024. "Screening for Breakthroughs," CRC TR 224 Discussion Paper Series crctr224_2024_562, University of Bonn and University of Mannheim, Germany.
    6. Elchanan Ben-Porath & Eddie Dekel & Barton L Lipman, 2018. "Disclosure and Choice," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 85(3), pages 1471-1501.
    7. Elliot Lipnowski & Doron Ravid, 2020. "Cheap Talk With Transparent Motives," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 88(4), pages 1631-1660, July.
    8. Matthias Lang, 2020. "Mechanism Design with Narratives," CESifo Working Paper Series 8502, CESifo.
    9. Goel, Sumit & Hann-Caruthers, Wade, 2024. "Project selection with partially verifiable information," Mathematical Social Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 132(C), pages 105-113.
    10. Geoffrey A. Chua & Gaoji Hu & Fang Liu, 2023. "Optimal multi-unit allocation with costly verification," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 61(3), pages 455-488, October.
    11. Edith Elkind & Davide Grossi & Ehud Shapiro & Nimrod Talmon, 2024. "United for change: deliberative coalition formation to change the status quo," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 63(3), pages 717-746, November.
    12. Emir Kamenica & Xiao Lin, 2024. "Commitment and Randomization in Communication," PIER Working Paper Archive 24-033, Penn Institute for Economic Research, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania.
    13. P. Milgrom, 2009. "What the Seller Wont Tell You: Persuasion and Disclosure in Markets," Voprosy Ekonomiki, NP Voprosy Ekonomiki, issue 3.
    14. Jacob Glazer & Ariel Rubinstein, 2012. "A Model of Persuasion with Boundedly Rational Agents," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 120(6), pages 1057-1082.
    15. Shaofei Jiang, 2024. "Equilibrium refinement in finite action evidence games," International Journal of Game Theory, Springer;Game Theory Society, vol. 53(1), pages 43-70, March.
    16. Frédéric Koessler & Eduardo Perez-Richet, 2019. "Evidence reading mechanisms," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 53(3), pages 375-397, October.
    17. Silva, Francisco, 2019. "Renegotiation proof mechanism design with imperfect type verification," Theoretical Economics, Econometric Society, vol. 14(3), July.
    18. Ying Chen & Wojciech Olszewski, 2014. "Effective Persuasion," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 55(2), pages 319-347, May.
    19. Sebastian Schweighofer-Kodritsch & Roland Strausz, 2023. "Principled Mechanism Design with Evidence," Berlin School of Economics Discussion Papers 0030, Berlin School of Economics.
    20. Alessandro Ispano & Péter Vida, 2020. "Custodial Interrogations," THEMA Working Papers 2020-05, THEMA (THéorie Economique, Modélisation et Applications), Université de Cergy-Pontoise.

    More about this item

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:arx:papers:2510.07994. 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: arXiv administrators (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://arxiv.org/ .

    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.