mechanism-design-plannerlisted

# Mechanism Design Planner > Reverse-engineers the rules so that participants acting in their own interest produce the outcome you want. ## What this skill is A workflow that frames an allocation problem as a mechanism-design problem, surfaces the design objectives (efficiency, revenue, fairness, simplicity), picks the right mechanism class (first-price, second-price, Vickrey-Clarke-Groves (VCG), posted-price, matching, scoring auction), checks the canonical properties (Incentive Compatibility (IC), Individual Rationality (IR), budget balance, no-deficit), and stress-tests against collusion and gaming. ## What it solves - Mechanisms that are gamed because participants have private information and weak incentives to reveal it - Auctions that maximize revenue in theory but kill participation in practice - Pricing models that look optimal until customers stop adopting - Allocation rules that produce inefficient outcomes (the wrong party wins) - Programs (referrals, compensation plans, Requests for Proposal (RFPs)) that produce unintended behaviors ## When to invoke - Designing a marketplace pricing model (commissions, dynamic pricing, surge) - Procurement or RFP design where bidders are strategic - Auction format decisions (English, sealed-bid, second-price, combinatorial) - Internal resource allocation (compute quota, headcount, budget) - Matching problems (school choice, dorm assignment, kidney exchange, marketplace pairing) - Incentive compensation, referral programs,