We study the design of self-enforcing mechanisms that rely on neither a trusted third party (e.g., court, trusted mechanism designer) nor a long-term relationship. Instead, we use a smart contract written on blockchains as a commitment device. We design the digital court, a smart contract that...

This study demonstrates a novel epistemological approach to mechanism design. We consider a type space in which agents are either selfish or honest, and show that a slight possibility of honesty in higher-order beliefs motivates all selfish agents to behave sincerely. Specifically, in our model,...