Mediated contracts and mechanism design

The framework of incentive compatible finite direct coordination mechanisms in the sense of Myerson (1982) [5] is isomorphic to a framework of incentive compatible stochastic mediated contracts in the sense of Rahman and Obara (2010) [11] and Rahman (2009)[10]. The equivalence follows because the framework of Myerson (1982) [5] allows for a correlation between recommendations and transfers. The literature has hitherto not recognized the importance of this correlation for the structure of optimal contracts and for extending the revelation principle to address agency (moral hazard) problems. (C) 2012 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.