Contracts with Information Acquisition, via Scoring Rules

Maneesha Papireddygari; Bo Waggoner

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arXiv · 2204.01773

Contracts with Information Acquisition, via Scoring Rules

Maneesha Papireddygari·Bo Waggoner

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Abstract

We consider a principal-agent problem where the agent may privately choose to acquire relevant information prior to taking a hidden action. This model generalizes two special cases: a classic moral hazard setting, and a more recently studied problem of incentivizing information acquisition (IA). We show that all of these problems can be reduced to the design of a proper scoring rule. Under a limited liability condition, we consider the special cases separately and then the general problem. We give novel results for the special case of IA, giving a closed form "pointed polyhedral cone" solution for the general multidimensional problem. We also describe a geometric, scoring-rules based solution to the case of the classic contracts problem. Finally, we give an efficient algorithm for the general problem of Contracts with Information Acquisition.

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BibTeX RIS

Maneesha Papireddygari, Bo Waggoner. 2022-04-04. Contracts with Information Acquisition, via Scoring Rules. https://arxiv.org/abs/2204.01773

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