A mechanism is a mathematical structure that models institutions through which economic activity is guided and coordinated. There are many such institutions; markets are the most familiar ones. Lawmakers, administrators and officers of private companies create institutions in order to achieve desired goals. They seek to do so in ways that economize on the resources needed to operate the institutions, and that provide incentives that induce the required behaviors. This book presents systematic procedures for designing mechanisms that achieve specified performance, and economize on the resources required to operate the mechanism. The systematic design procedures are algorithms for designing informationally efficient mechanisms. Most of the book deals with these procedures of design. When there are finitely many environments to be dealt with, and there is a Nash-implementing mechanism, our algorithms can be used to make that mechanism into an informationally efficient one. Informationally efficient dominant strategy implementation is also studied.

作者：(美國)赫維茨 瑞特 譯者：田國強 等

利奧尼德·赫維茨（1917—2008），2007年諾貝爾經濟學奬獲得者，美國明尼蘇達大學經濟學講座教授。赫維茨教授在經濟理論特彆是機製和製度設計、數理經濟學等領域的先驅研究舉世聞名，享有“機製設計理論之父”的贊譽。