This project contributes to the analysis of and aims to help solve the so-called many hands problem: the allocation of moral responsibility in a multi-agent setting. The existing literature on the many hands problem focuses mainly on the difficulties when agents want to establish who is responsible for some outcome in which they were involved but in which many others were as well. The approach here is different by assuming that the individuals responsible for the outcome are predetermined. However, due to the lack of information and inability (because of high costs) to gather evidence, these individuals cannot always be easily identified. The problem then is to design a truth-revelation mechanism that efficiently identifies a sub-group of individuals responsible for an adverse outcome. The mechanism requires individuals to release certain information (to an external authority or otherwise). A rule is implemented, based on this information, to help reveal the culprits. An efficient mechanism is one that precisely identifies the responsible individuals by minimizing the search costs.

This project is focused on developing this mechanism for two environmental applications: one at the state-level where an external authority does not exist and another at the individual-level with an external authority. The benefit of this mechanism is that it would deter individuals from non-compliant behaviour even in situations where formal evidence cannot be gathered.