Que es el diseño de mecanismos?

Alex Tabarrok explica en este articulo lo que es el diseño de mecanismos, la investigacion a la que le dieron el Nobel de Economia de este año:

"Two children are squabbling over how to divide a pie. We need a method to divide the pie fairly. Parents will already know one answer—one child cuts and the second child chooses. The second child will choose the larger half which gives the first child the incentive to cut as evenly as possible. The first-cut, second-choose solution is a simple example of an incentive-compatible mechanism. Leonid Hurwicz, Eric Maskin, and Roger Myerson received the Nobel prize in economics for their study of incentive-compatible mechanisms or, more informally, 'mechanism design' ".