Incentive compatibility

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In mechanism design, a process is said to be incentive compatible if all of the participants fare best when they truthfully reveal any private information the mechanism asks for. As an illustration, voting systems which create incentives to vote dishonestly lack the property of incentive compatibility. In the absence of dummy bidders, a second price auction is an example of mechanism that is incentive compatible.

There are different degrees of incentive compatibility: in some games, truth-telling can be a dominant strategy. A weaker notion is that truth-telling is a Bayes-Nash equilibrium: it is best for each participant to tell the truth, provided that others are also doing so.

view	Topics in game theory
Definitions	Normal form game · Extensive form game · Cooperative game · Information set · Preference
Equilibrium concepts	Nash equilibrium · Subgame perfection · Bayes-Nash · Trembling hand · Correlated equilibrium · Sequential equilibrium · Quasi-perfect equilibrium · Evolutionarily stable strategy
Strategies	Dominant strategies · Mixed strategy · Grim trigger · Tit for Tat
Classes of games	Symmetric game · Perfect information · Dynamic game · Repeated game · Signaling game · Cheap talk · Zero-sum game · Mechanism design
Games	Prisoner's dilemma · Coordination game · Chicken · Battle of the sexes · Stag hunt · Matching pennies · Ultimatum game · Minority game · Rock, Paper, Scissors · Pirate game · Dictator game
Theorems	Minimax theorem · Purification theorems · Folk theorem · Revelation principle · Arrow's Theorem
Related topics	Mathematics · Economics · Behavioral economics · Evolutionary game theory · Population genetics · Behavioral ecology · Adaptive dynamics · List of game theorists