Prior-independent mechanism

In the context of mechanism design and economics, a **prior-independent mechanism** refers to a type of mechanism (or auction) that does not rely on the prior beliefs or distributions about the types of the agents participating in the mechanism. This contrasts with traditional mechanism design, where the optimal design often depends on the knowledge of the agents' types or their valuations, which are usually modeled as drawn from some known probability distribution. **Key Characteristics of Prior-Independent Mechanisms:** 1.