{"title":"如果我们承认我们的罪","authors":"Francisco Silva","doi":"10.1111/iere.12390","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"I consider a scenario where a social planner suspects that a crime has been committed. There are many suspects and at most one of them is guilty. I characterize the optimal mechanism for the social planner under different assumptions with respect to her commitment power. I find that the optimal mechanism is a “confession inducing mechanism”: Before an investigation, each agent can confess to being guilty in exchange for a reduced punishment. I find that these mechanisms do better than the traditional trial mechanism because of information externalities: When an agent credibly confesses his guilt, he reveals everyone else's innocence.","PeriodicalId":393761,"journal":{"name":"ERN: Other Game Theory & Bargaining Theory (Topic)","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0000,"publicationDate":"2019-08-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"13","resultStr":"{\"title\":\"If We Confess Our Sins\",\"authors\":\"Francisco Silva\",\"doi\":\"10.1111/iere.12390\",\"DOIUrl\":null,\"url\":null,\"abstract\":\"I consider a scenario where a social planner suspects that a crime has been committed. There are many suspects and at most one of them is guilty. I characterize the optimal mechanism for the social planner under different assumptions with respect to her commitment power. I find that the optimal mechanism is a “confession inducing mechanism”: Before an investigation, each agent can confess to being guilty in exchange for a reduced punishment. I find that these mechanisms do better than the traditional trial mechanism because of information externalities: When an agent credibly confesses his guilt, he reveals everyone else's innocence.\",\"PeriodicalId\":393761,\"journal\":{\"name\":\"ERN: Other Game Theory & Bargaining Theory (Topic)\",\"volume\":null,\"pages\":null},\"PeriodicalIF\":0.0000,\"publicationDate\":\"2019-08-01\",\"publicationTypes\":\"Journal Article\",\"fieldsOfStudy\":null,\"isOpenAccess\":false,\"openAccessPdf\":\"\",\"citationCount\":\"13\",\"resultStr\":null,\"platform\":\"Semanticscholar\",\"paperid\":null,\"PeriodicalName\":\"ERN: Other Game Theory & Bargaining Theory (Topic)\",\"FirstCategoryId\":\"1085\",\"ListUrlMain\":\"https://doi.org/10.1111/iere.12390\",\"RegionNum\":0,\"RegionCategory\":null,\"ArticlePicture\":[],\"TitleCN\":null,\"AbstractTextCN\":null,\"PMCID\":null,\"EPubDate\":\"\",\"PubModel\":\"\",\"JCR\":\"\",\"JCRName\":\"\",\"Score\":null,\"Total\":0}","platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"ERN: Other Game Theory & Bargaining Theory (Topic)","FirstCategoryId":"1085","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1111/iere.12390","RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":null,"ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"","JCRName":"","Score":null,"Total":0}
I consider a scenario where a social planner suspects that a crime has been committed. There are many suspects and at most one of them is guilty. I characterize the optimal mechanism for the social planner under different assumptions with respect to her commitment power. I find that the optimal mechanism is a “confession inducing mechanism”: Before an investigation, each agent can confess to being guilty in exchange for a reduced punishment. I find that these mechanisms do better than the traditional trial mechanism because of information externalities: When an agent credibly confesses his guilt, he reveals everyone else's innocence.