<p><a href="http://web.stanford.edu/~gdc/robustcontract.pdf" rel="nofollow">Robustness and linear contracts</a> by Carroll says that linear is optimal (in his class of environments). <a href="http://theory.stanford.edu/~tim/" rel="nofollow">Tim Roughgarden</a> from Stanford also studies `the price of anarchy' related to using simple but suboptimal mechanisms.</p>

CC BY-SA 3.0
2015-04-15T04:33:35.687Z
2015-04-15T04:33:35.687Z
Sander Heinsalu
<p>In mechanism design, the optimal mechanism is usually not linear in the agent's type. However, linear mechanisms are easy for implementation. Are there any studies on the performance comparison between optimal and linear mechanisms. I guess a theoretical comparison is probably hard, as the payoff in the linear mechanism does not have closed-form, but a numerical analysis is not very difficult. Thanks.</p>

CC BY-SA 3.0
2015-03-18T03:56:43.637Z
This doesn't answer your question, but you might be interested in this literature on robustness in linear contracts, in particular, [Calibrated incentive contracts](http://www.princeton.edu/~chassang/papers/calibratedContracts.pdf) by Sylvain Chassang.
NickJ
CC BY-SA 3.0
2015-03-19T15:48:09.480Z
Thank you for the reference you suggested. This is helpful.
Justin
<game-theory><mechanism-design>
Any study on performance gap between optimal mechanism and linear mechanism?
Justin
# Any study on performance gap between optimal mechanism and linear mechanism?

(Asked by: username_0 on 2015-01-30)

In mechanism design, the optimal mechanism is usually not linear in the agent's type. However, linear mechanisms are easy for implementation. Are there any studies on the performance comparison between optimal and linear mechanisms. I guess a theoretical comparison is probably hard, as the payoff in the linear mechanism does not have closed-form, but a numerical analysis is not very difficult. Thanks.

**Tags:** game-theory, mechanism-design

> **Comments:**
> **username_1**: This doesn't answer your question, but you might be interested in this literature on robustness in linear contracts, in particular, [Calibrated incentive contracts](http://www.princeton.edu/~chassang/papers/calibratedContracts.pdf) by Sylvain Chassang.  
> **username_0**: Thank you for the reference you suggested. This is helpful.  

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## 1 answers

### Answer by username_2 on 2015-04-15. Score: 1

[Robustness and linear contracts](http://web.stanford.edu/~gdc/robustcontract.pdf) by Carroll says that linear is optimal (in his class of environments). [Tim Roughgarden](http://theory.stanford.edu/~tim/) from Stanford also studies `the price of anarchy' related to using simple but suboptimal mechanisms.


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