Keeping the Agents in the Dark: Competing Mechanisms, Private Disclosures, and the Revelation Principle
				Attar  AndreaCampioni  EloisaMariotti ThomasPavan Alessandro			
		
				CEIS Research Paper
		
				We study the design of market information in competing-mechanism games. We identify a new dimension, private disclosures, whereby the principals asymmetrically inform the agents of how their mechanisms operate. We show that private disclosures have two important effects. First, they can raise a principal's payoff guarantee against her competitors' threats. Second, they can support equilibrium outcomes and payoffs that cannot be supported with standard mechanisms. These results call for a novel approach to competing mechanisms, which we develop to identify a canonical game and a canonical class of equilibria, thereby establishing a new revelation principle for this class of environments.
 
 
		
		
	 
Number: 615
		
				Keywords: Incomplete Information, Competing Mechanisms, Private Disclosures, Revelation Principle.
		
				JEL codes: D82
		
				Volume: 23
		
				Issue: 8
		
				Date: Tuesday, October 28, 2025
		
				Revision Date: Tuesday, October 28, 2025