Why Indirect Mechanisms?

When analyzing a mechanism it is convenient to assume that it is direct. The revelation principle allows one to argue that this restriction is without loss of generality. Yet, there are cases where one prefers to implement the indirect version of a mechanism rather than its direct counterpart. The clock version of the English ascending auction and the sealed bid second price auction are the most well known example (one hopes not the only). There are few (i.e. I could not immediately recall any) theorems that uniquely characterize a particular indirect mechanism. It would be nice to have more. What might such a characterization depend upon?

1) Direct mechanisms require that agents report their types. A concern for privacy could be used to `kill’ off a direct mechanism. However, one would first have to rule out the use of trusted third parties (either human or computers implementing cryptographic protocols).

2) Indirect mechanism can sometimes be thought of as an extensive form game and one might look for refinements of solution concepts for extensive form games that have no counterpart in the direct version of the mechanism. The notion of obviously dominant strategy-proof that appears here is an example. However, indirect mechanisms may introduce equilibria, absent in the direct counterpart, that are compelling for the agents but unattractive for the designers purposes.

3) One feature of observed indirect mechanisms is that they use simple message spaces, but compensate by using multiple rounds of communication. Thus a constraint on message spaces would be needed in a characterization but coupled with a constraint on the rounds of communication.

Moral Hazard and Brown M&Ms

From Kris Shaw, a TA in for my ECON 101 class, I learnt that the band Van Halen once required that brown M&M’s not darken their dressing room door. Why? Maybe it was a lark. Perhaps, a member of the band (or two) could not resist chuckling over the idea of a minor factotum appointed to the task of sorting the M&Ms. When minor factotum is asked what they did that day, the response was bound to elicit guffaws. However, minor factotum might have made it a point to not wash their hands before sorting the M&Ms. Then, who would be laughing harder?

A copy of the M&M rider can be found here. Along with van Halen’s explanation of why the rider was included:

……the group has said the M&M provision was included to make sure that promoters had actually read its lengthy rider. If brown M&M’s were in the backstage candy bowl, Van Halen surmised that more important aspects of a performance–lighting, staging, security, ticketing–may have been botched by an inattentive promoter.

So the rider helps screen, apparently, whether the promotor pays attention to detail. I think the explanation problematic. It suggests that it is hard to monitor effort expended by promoter on important things like staging for example. So, monitor something completely irrelevant. The strategic promoter should shirk on the staging and expend effort on the M&Ms.