Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/59656 
Year of Publication: 
2011
Series/Report no.: 
Discussion Paper No. 1541
Publisher: 
Northwestern University, Kellogg School of Management, Center for Mathematical Studies in Economics and Management Science, Evanston, IL
Abstract: 
I analyze common agency games in which the principals, and possibly the agent, have private information. I distinguish between games in which the principals delegate the final decisions to the agent, and games in which they retain some decision power after offering their mechanisms. I show that, in contrast with mechanism design models with one informed principal, Myerson's Inscrutability Principle fails when there are many informed principals. I also find that, in contrast with common agency models with uninformed principals, the Delegation Principle (Menu Theorem) fails when principals are informed. I then focus on Perfect Bayesian Equilibria in which principals offer their mechanisms without randomizing. I characterize the outcomes of arbitrary games with delegation as outcomes of a new game in which principals offer menus and send cheap-talk signals. Next, I characterize the outcomes of arbitrary games without delegation as outcomes of a new game in which principals offer menus of direct revelation mechanisms, to which they truthfully report their types.
Subjects: 
common agency
informed principals
Inscrutability Principle
Delegation Principle
menus
signals
direct revelation mechanisms
JEL: 
C72
D82
D83
D86
Document Type: 
Working Paper

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