| Abstract: |
I study multidimensional sequential screening. A monopolist contracts with an
agent endowed with private information about the distribution of their
eventual valuations of different goods; a contract is written and the agent
reports their initial private information before drawing and reporting their
valuations. In these settings, the monopolist frontloads surplus extraction:
Any information rents given to the agent to elicit their post-contractual
valuations can be extracted in expectation before valuations are drawn. This
significantly simplifies the multidimensional screening problem. If the
agent's valuations satisfy invariant dependencies (valuations can be dependent
across dimensions, but how valuations are coupled cannot vary in their initial
private information), the optimal mechanism coincides with independently
offering the optimal sequential screening mechanism for each good, regardless
of the dependency structure. |