Robust Mechanisms Under Common Valuation

Abstract

We study robust mechanisms to sell a common-value good. We assume that the mechanism designer knows the prior distribution of the buyers' common value but is unsure of the buyers' information structure about the common value. We use linear programming duality to derive mechanisms that guarantee a good revenue among all information structures and all equilibria. Our mechanism maximizes the revenue guarantee when there is one buyer. As the number of buyers tends to infinity, the revenue guarantee of our mechanism converges to the full surplus.