Imperfect Commitment and the Revelation Principle: the Multi-Agent Case with Transferable Utility

Bester and Strausz (2000) showed that the revelation principle of Bester and Strausz (2001) does not apply in a setting of many agents and no com-mitment. In their counterexample only one agent has private information. We show that if the parties can make ex ante transfers the revelation prin-ciple does extend to this setting. However, we show that it does not extend to a setting in which more than one agent has private information. JEL Classi\u85cation No.: D2