Imagine a resource allocation scenario in which the interested parties can, at a cost, individually research ways of using the resource to be allocated, potentially increasing the value they would achieve from obtaining it. Each agent has a private model of its research process and obtains a private realization of its improvement in value, if any. From a social perspective it is optimal to coordinate research in a way that strikes the right tradeoff between value and cost, ultimately allocating the resource to one party
Ruggiero Cavallo, David C. Parkes