Authors
Santiago R Balseiro, Huseyin Gurkan, Peng Sun
Publication date
2019/9
Journal
Operations Research
Volume
67
Issue
5
Pages
1417-1436
Publisher
INFORMS
Description
We consider a principal repeatedly allocating a single resource in each period to one of multiple agents, whose values are private, without relying on monetary payments over an infinite horizon with discounting. We design a dynamic mechanism that induces agents to report their values truthfully in each period via promises/threats of future favorable/unfavorable allocations. We show that our mechanism asymptotically achieves the first-best efficient allocation (the welfare-maximizing allocation as if values are public) as agents become more patient and provide sharp characterizations of convergence rates to first best as a function of the discount factor. In particular, in the case of two agents we prove that the convergence rate of our mechanism is optimal—that is, no other mechanism can converge faster to first best.
Total citations
20192020202120222023202422119164
Scholar articles
SR Balseiro, H Gurkan, P Sun - Operations Research, 2019