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Applied and bridge studies study record
Hollow Win theory & mechanismsCredibility After the Contract
STATUS · Manuscript in progressSSRN · Not yet posted
MECHANISM
Identify the incentive structure and the condition that would falsify the claim.
RULE CHANGE
Read the intervention only after the paper shows how the current payoff space fails to support system welfare.
READER USE
Use the summary to see where private gain creates system exposure, then check the study record.
Reading βW
βW means annual system-welfare loss divided by annual industry revenue Π. Revenue is the denominator, never profit, earnings, or net income; ΔW and Π must use the same domain, same time period, and same activity boundary. See the βW methodology manual.
Contribution — what this adds to the conversation
Provides formal theorems (Reconstruction Credibility, Hollow Win Convergence, Reconstruction Mandate Equilibrium, βW Reduction) with falsification conditions.
WHAT'S NEW · Introduces Reconstruction Mandate and formalizes credibility as a function of decision record reconstructability, extending MST and DA frameworks.
The paper establishes that public commitments fail not due to bad faith but because governments cannot reconstruct their own decisions. It introduces the Reconstruction Mandate—a rule requiring contemporaneous 17-field Decision Accounting records—to transform bilateral games into trilateral verifiable equilibria, estimating that each dollar of contract revenue destroys $8.40 of system welfare in public procurement.