Mitigating Information Asymmetry in Two-Stage Contracts with Non-Myopic Agents (2406.12648v2)

Abstract: We consider a Stackelberg game in which a principal (she) establishes a two-stage contract with a non-myopic agent (he) whose type is unknown. The contract takes the form of an incentive function mapping the agent's first-stage action to his second-stage incentive. While the first-stage action reveals the agent's type under truthful play, a non-myopic agent could benefit from portraying a false type in the first stage to obtain a larger incentive in the second stage. The challenge is thus for the principal to design the incentive function so as to induce truthful play. We show that this is only possible with a constant, non-reactive incentive functions when the type space is continuous, whereas it can be achieved with reactive functions for discrete types. Additionally, we show that introducing an adjustment mechanism that penalizes inconsistent behavior across both stages allows the principal to design more flexible incentive functions.