Mechanism Design in Accounting: Lessons Learned, Lessons Lost | Thomas Hemmer (Rice) | AES Big Talk

What do disclosure, verification, contracting and bargaining have in common? Thomas Hemmer (Rice) examines the connections—and the ways familiar research labels can obscure them—in this AES Big Talk. Mechanism Design in Accounting: Lessons Learned, Lessons Lost Thomas Hemmer — Rice AES Big Talk | Accounting and Economics Society Recorded February 7, 2025 This is a broader research-agenda talk, not a presentation of a single working paper. Through analytical examples from information economics, Hemmer discusses disclosure and unraveling, the revelation principle, selective verifiability, costly disclosure, and bargaining under asymmetric information. Temporary alternate titles on the slides are part of his discussion of labels, not later paper versions. Papers discussed are contextual references, not talk coauthors. The presentation preserves its motivation and substantive during-talk question and answer. Pre-talk setup and the separate final Q&A are omitted. Event listing: https://accountingtheory.org/webinars Presenter: https://business.rice.edu/person/thom... Thumbnail: the approved Constructivist mechanical illustration is a visual metaphor for mechanism design, not a presenter portrait or an empirical research finding. Opening music: "Cipher" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License https://creativecommons.org/licenses/... Track source: https://incompetech.com/music/royalty... Changes: excerpted, normalized and faded for the complete supplied AES animated opener; music ends before the presenter begins. The supplied AES outro is retained with its original audio.