Prior-free Collusion-proof Dynamic Mechanisms
Provides a prior-free solution to collusion-proof mechanism design in dynamic settings, though with lower guaranteed utility, addressing a key limitation of prior-dependent mechanisms.
The paper proves prior-free lifting theorems for dynamic stochastic multi-player problems, achieving a prior-free collusion-proof mechanism with a 0.872 approximation to optimal utility in a Markovian repeated single-good allocation problem.
For a general class of dynamic stochastic multi-player problems, Csóka, Liu, Rodivilov, and Teytelboym (2024) proposed prior-dependent efficient collusion-proof mechanisms. The present paper proves prior-free lifting theorems, at the price of lower guaranteed utility levels that depend on the set of possible initial type profiles. As a special case, we implement a $0.872$-approximately utility-maximizing prior-free collusion-proof mechanism for the Markovian repeated single-good allocation problem studied by Fikioris, Banerjee, and Tardos (2025).