I received my AER table of contents email and was intrigued enough by the title of the lead article ("optimal allocation with costly verification") to read the abstract. I wish I hadn't:
A principal allocates an object to one of I agents. Each agent values receiving the object and has private information regarding the value to the principal of giving it to him. There are no monetary transfers, but the principal can check an agent's information at a cost. A favored-agent mechanism specifies a value v* and an agent i*. If all agents other than i* report values below v*, then i* receives the good and no one is checked. Otherwise, whoever reports the highest value is checked and receives the good if and only if her report is confirmed. All optimal mechanisms are essentially randomizations over optimal favored-agent mechanisms.
Congrats to the authors, but really? The signal that you are smarter than everyone else should be in the text of the paper and not the abstract, even in the AER (if I'm missing something, someone please let me know). First, the first sentence includes the letter I, which is a word in itself, as the index of the number of agents. Second, the abstract devolves into mathematical gibberish. Third, if the math is in the abstract why proceed with the paper?
There must be a better way.
*Note: I already realize that this post clearly identifies me as a grumpy old ALRM.
