# Audited Pivot Scoring Mechanism

In multi-agent systems, confidence often decides who receives scarce downstream computation and decision weight, which gives agents an incentive to overstate it. The Audited Pivot Scoring Mechanism (APSM) offsets platform-controlled allocation benefits in the transfer, verifies outcomes through inverse-propensity-weighted sparse audits, charges the Clarke pivot externality, and adds a strictly proper score, making truthful reporting the unique expected-utility best response. Calculator-free experiments show agents inflate confidence under Top-K incentives; with an agent-local utility interface, APSM yields lower Brier loss and fewer cutoff crossings than Compensated Proper Scoring (CPS), while CPS achieves a higher exact allocation match.

In multi-agent systems, confidence often decides who receives scarce downstream computation and decision weight, which gives agents an incentive to overstate it. The Audited Pivot Scoring Mechanism (APSM) offsets platform-controlled allocation benefits in the transfer, verifies outcomes through inverse-propensity-weighted sparse audits, charges the Clarke pivot externality, and adds a strictly proper score, making truthful reporting the unique expected-utility best response. Calculator-free experiments show agents inflate confidence under Top-K incentives; with an agent-local utility interface, APSM yields lower Brier loss and fewer cutoff crossings than Compensated Proper Scoring (CPS), while CPS achieves a higher exact allocation match.