We study efficiency and budget balance for designing mechanisms in general quasi-linear domains. Green and Laffont [13] proved that one cannot generically achieve both. We consider strategyproof budgetbalanced mechanisms that are approximately efficient. For deterministic mechanisms, we show that a strategyproof and budget-balanced mechanism must have a sink agent whose valuation function is ig...

Establishing realistic project plans and completing the resulting business projects on schedule is crucial for organizations striving to effectively utilize their resources. However, incentivizing on-time delivery may result in moral hazard, as people could respond estimation accuracy incentives by strategically inflating duration estimates subsequently prolonging execution. While delivered tim...