Mechanism Design with Limited Commitment

Explore a lecture on mechanism design with limited commitment, focusing on dynamic mechanism-selection games where designers can only commit to short-term mechanisms. Learn about direct Blackwell mechanisms, a canonical class that replicates outcomes of equilibria between uninformed designers and privately informed agents. Discover how this approach simplifies the search for designer-optimal outcomes by reducing agent behavior to participation, truthtelling, and Bayes' plausibility constraints. Examine applications in dynamic pricing of durable goods, infinite horizon bargaining, and product personalization under future price discrimination threats. Gain insights from Laura Doval of Columbia University in this 59-minute talk presented at the Simons Institute's Data-Driven Decision Processes Boot Camp.