Mechanism design for acquisition of/stochastic evidence

Elchanan Ben-Porath (), Eddie Dekel () and Barton L. Lipman ()
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Elchanan Ben-Porath: Department of Economics, Hebrew University of Jerusalem
Eddie Dekel: Department of Economics, Northwestern University and Tel Aviv University
Barton L. Lipman: Department of Economics, Boston University

Theoretical Economics, Forthcoming

Abstract: We explore two interrelated models of ``hard information.'' In the evidence--acquisition model, an agent with private information searches for evidence to show the principal about her type. In the signal--choice model, a privately informed agent chooses an action generating a random signal whose realization may be correlated with her type. The signal--choice model is a special case and, as we show, under certain conditions, a reduced form of the evidence--acquisition model. We develop tools for characterizing optimal mechanisms for these models by giving conditions under which some aspects of the principal's optimal choices can be identified only from the information structure, without regard to the utility functions or the principal's priors.

Keywords: Evidence; test; mechanism design (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C7 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025-08-11
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