Zero-Knowledge Mechanisms

Ran Canetti, Amos Fiat and Yannai A. Gonczarowski

Papers from arXiv.org

Abstract: A powerful feature in mechanism design is the ability to irrevocably commit to the rules of a mechanism. Commitment is achieved by public declaration, which enables players to verify incentive properties in advance and the outcome in retrospect. However, public declaration can reveal superfluous information that the mechanism designer might prefer not to disclose, such as her target function or private costs. Avoiding this may be possible via a trusted mediator; however, the availability of a trustworthy mediator, especially if mechanism secrecy must be maintained for years, might be unrealistic. We propose a new approach to commitment, and show how to commit to, and run, any given mechanism without disclosing it, while enabling the verification of incentive properties and the outcome -- all without the need for any mediators. Our framework utilizes zero-knowledge proofs -- a cornerstone of modern cryptographic theory. Applications include both private-type settings such as auctions and private-action settings such as contracts, as well as non-mediated bargaining with hidden yet binding offers.

Date: 2023-02, Revised 2025-07
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-des, nep-gth and nep-mic
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://arxiv.org/pdf/2302.05590 Latest version (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:arx:papers:2302.05590

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Papers from arXiv.org
Bibliographic data for series maintained by arXiv administrators ().