Abstract:
Mechanism design theory strongly relies on the concept of Nash equilibrium. However, studies of experimental games show that Nash equilibria are rarely played and that subjects may be thinking only a finite number of iterations. We study one of the most influential benchmarks of mechanism design theory, the expected externality mechanism (DÁspremont, Gerard-Varet, 1979) in a finite-depth environment described by the Lk model. While efficient implementation fails under certain conditions, our results provide a vindication of the mechanism in the convex quasi-linear environment with finitely-rational agents.