mechanism design theory教程.pdf

15 October 2007 Scientific background on the Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel 2007 Mechanism Design Theory Compiled by the Prize Committee of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences ____________________________________________________________________________________________________ Information Department, Box 50005, SE-104 05 Stockholm, Sweden Phone: +46 8 673 95 00, Fax: +46 8 15 56 70, E-mail: info@kva.se, Website: www.kva.se 1 Introduction Economic transactions take place in markets, within firms and under a host of other institutional arrangements. Some markets are free of government intervention while others are regulated. Within firms, some transactions are guided by market prices, some are negotiated, and yet others are dictated by management. Mechanism design theory provides a coherent framework for analyzing this great variety of institutions, or “allocation mechanisms”, with a focus on the problems associated with incentives and private information. Markets, or market-like institutions, often allocate goods and services efficiently. Long ago, economists theoretically proved this efficiency under fairly stringent assump- tions concerning, among other things, the nature of the goods to be produced and traded, participants’ information about these, and the degree of competition. Mecha- nism design theory allows researchers to systematically analyze and compare a broad variety of institutions under less stringent assumptions. By using game theory, mech- anism design can go beyond the classical approach, and, for example, explicitly model how prices are set. In some cases, the game-theoretic approach has led to a new appre- ciation of