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The (No) Value of Commitment

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  • 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.

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  • Nathan Hancart, 2025. "The (No) Value of Commitment," Papers 2510.07994, arXiv.org.
    • Handle: RePEc:arx:papers:2510.07994
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    1. , & ,, 2006. "A study in the pragmatics of persuasion: a game theoretical approach," Theoretical Economics, Econometric Society, vol. 1(4), pages 395-410, December.
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