IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/cfi/fseres/cf518.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Epistemological Implementation of Social Choice Functions

Author

Listed:
  • Hitoshi Matsushima

    (University of Tokyo)

Abstract

We investigate the implementation of social choice functions (SCFs) from an epistemological perspective. We consider the possibility that in higher-order beliefs there exists an honest agent who is motivated by intrinsic preference for honesty as well as material interest. We assume weak honesty, in that an honest agent is mostly motivated by material interests and even tells white lies. Importantly, this study assumes that “all agents are selfish†never happens to be common knowledge. We then show the following positive results for the implementability: In complete information environments, with three or more agents, any SCF is uniquely implementable in the Bayesian Nash equilibrium (BNE). In asymmetric information environments, with a minor restriction named information diversity, any incentive-compatible SCF is fully implementable in BNE. An SCF, whether material or nonmaterial (ethical), can be implemented even if all agents are selfish and "all agents are selfish" is mutual knowledge.

Suggested Citation

  • Hitoshi Matsushima, 2021. "Epistemological Implementation of Social Choice Functions," CARF F-Series CARF-F-518, Center for Advanced Research in Finance, Faculty of Economics, The University of Tokyo.
    • Handle: RePEc:cfi:fseres:cf518
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.carf.e.u-tokyo.ac.jp/admin/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/F518.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Kreps, David M. & Milgrom, Paul & Roberts, John & Wilson, Robert, 1982. "Rational cooperation in the finitely repeated prisoners' dilemma," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 27(2), pages 245-252, August.
    2. Morris, Stephen & Shin, Hyun Song, 1998. "Unique Equilibrium in a Model of Self-Fulfilling Currency Attacks," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 88(3), pages 587-597, June.
    3. Sebastian Morris, 2022. "Introduction," India Studies in Business and Economics, in: Macroeconomic Policy in India Since the Global Financial Crisis, chapter 0, pages 1-21, Springer.
    4. Matsushima Hitoshi, 1993. "Bayesian Monotonicity with Side Payments," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 59(1), pages 107-121, February.
    5. Yadav, Sonal, 2016. "Selecting winners with partially honest jurors," Mathematical Social Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 83(C), pages 35-43.
    6. Carlsson, Hans & van Damme, Eric, 1993. "Global Games and Equilibrium Selection," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 61(5), pages 989-1018, September.
    7. Tore Ellingsen & Magnus Johannesson, 2004. "Promises, Threats and Fairness," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 114(495), pages 397-420, April.
    8. Dutta, Bhaskar & Sen, Arunava, 2012. "Nash implementation with partially honest individuals," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 74(1), pages 154-169.
    9. Michele Lombardi & Naoki Yoshihara, 2020. "Partially-honest Nash implementation: a full characterization," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 70(3), pages 871-904, October.
    10. Nolan Miller & Paul Resnick & Richard Zeckhauser, 2005. "Eliciting Informative Feedback: The Peer-Prediction Method," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 51(9), pages 1359-1373, September.
    11. Dirk Bergemann & Stephen Morris, 2012. "Robust Mechanism Design: An Introduction," World Scientific Book Chapters, in: Robust Mechanism Design The Role of Private Information and Higher Order Beliefs, chapter 1, pages 1-48, World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd..
    12. Matsushima, Hitoshi, 2008. "Role of honesty in full implementation," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 139(1), pages 353-359, March.
    13. Navin Kartik, 2009. "Strategic Communication with Lying Costs," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 76(4), pages 1359-1395.
    14. Dirk Bergemann & Stephen Morris, 2012. "Robust Mechanism Design," World Scientific Book Chapters, in: Robust Mechanism Design The Role of Private Information and Higher Order Beliefs, chapter 2, pages 49-96, World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd..
    15. Postlewaite, Andrew & Vives, Xavier, 1987. "Bank Runs as an Equilibrium Phenomenon," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 95(3), pages 485-491, June.
    16. Matsushima, Hitoshi, 2022. "Epistemological implementation of social choice functions," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 136(C), pages 389-402.
    17. Eric Maskin, 1999. "Nash Equilibrium and Welfare Optimality," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 66(1), pages 23-38.
    18. Lombardi, M. & Yoshihara, N., 2018. "Treading a fine line: (Im)possibilities for Nash implementation with partially-honest individuals," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 111(C), pages 203-216.
    19. Rubinstein, Ariel, 1989. "The Electronic Mail Game: Strategic Behavior under "Almost Common Knowledge."," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 79(3), pages 385-391, June.
    20. Kartik, Navin & Tercieux, Olivier & Holden, Richard, 2014. "Simple mechanisms and preferences for honesty," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 83(C), pages 284-290.
    21. Hitoshi Matsushima, 2021. "Partial ex-post verifiability and unique implementation of social choice functions," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 56(3), pages 549-567, April.
    22. Matsushima, Hitoshi, 2007. "Mechanism design with side payments: Individual rationality and iterative dominance," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 133(1), pages 1-30, March.
    23. Uzawa,Hirofumi, 2008. "Economic Analysis of Social Common Capital," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521066495.
    24. Savva, Foivos, 2018. "Strong implementation with partially honest individuals," Journal of Mathematical Economics, Elsevier, vol. 78(C), pages 27-34.
    25. , & ,, 2012. "Implementation with evidence," Theoretical Economics, Econometric Society, vol. 7(2), May.
    26. Matsushima, Hitoshi, 1991. "Incentive compatible mechanisms with full transferability," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 54(1), pages 198-203, June.
    27. Hitoshi Matsushima & Shunya Noda, 2020. "Mechanism Design with Blockchain Enforcement," DSSR Discussion Papers 111, Graduate School of Economics and Management, Tohoku University.
    28. Matsushima, Hitoshi, 2008. "Behavioral aspects of implementation theory," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 100(1), pages 161-164, July.
    29. Johannes Abeler & Daniele Nosenzo & Collin Raymond, 2019. "Preferences for Truth‐Telling," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 87(4), pages 1115-1153, July.
    30. Hitoshi Matsushima, 2021. "Auctions with Ethical Concerns," CARF F-Series CARF-F-515, Center for Advanced Research in Finance, Faculty of Economics, The University of Tokyo.
    31. Parag A. Pathak & Tayfun Sönmez & M. Utku Unver & M. Bumin Yenmez, 2020. "Leaving No Ethical Value Behind: Triage Protocol Design for Pandemic Rationing," NBER Working Papers 26951, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    32. Ortner, Juan, 2015. "Direct implementation with minimally honest individuals," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 90(C), pages 1-16.
    33. Mukherjee, Saptarshi & Muto, Nozomu & Ramaekers, Eve, 2017. "Implementation in undominated strategies with partially honest agents," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 104(C), pages 613-631.
    34. Matthew O. Jackson, 2001. "A crash course in implementation theory," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 18(4), pages 655-708.
    35. Maskin, Eric & Sjostrom, Tomas, 2002. "Implementation theory," Handbook of Social Choice and Welfare, in: K. J. Arrow & A. K. Sen & K. Suzumura (ed.), Handbook of Social Choice and Welfare, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 5, pages 237-288, Elsevier.
    36. Charness, Gary & Dufwenberg, Martin, 2003. "Promises & Partnership," Research Papers in Economics 2003:3, Stockholm University, Department of Economics.
    37. Hitoshi Matsushima, 2020. "Implementation, Honesty, and Common Knowledge," CARF F-Series CARF-F-500, Center for Advanced Research in Finance, Faculty of Economics, The University of Tokyo.
    38. Hitoshi Matsushima, 2013. "Process manipulation in unique implementation," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 41(4), pages 883-893, October.
    39. Michele Lombardi & Naoki Yoshihara, 2017. "Natural implementation with semi-responsible agents in pure exchange economies," International Journal of Game Theory, Springer;Game Theory Society, vol. 46(4), pages 1015-1036, November.
    40. Miller, Nolan H. & Pratt, John W. & Zeckhauser, Richard J. & Johnson, Scott, 2007. "Mechanism design with multidimensional, continuous types and interdependent valuations," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 136(1), pages 476-496, September.
    41. Gary Charness & Martin Dufwenberg, 2006. "Promises and Partnership," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 74(6), pages 1579-1601, November.
    42. Hitoshi Matsushima, 2019. "Implementation without expected utility: ex-post verifiability," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 53(4), pages 575-585, December.
    43. Satterthwaite, Mark Allen, 1975. "Strategy-proofness and Arrow's conditions: Existence and correspondence theorems for voting procedures and social welfare functions," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 10(2), pages 187-217, April.
    44. Doğan, Battal, 2017. "Eliciting the socially optimal allocation from responsible agents," Journal of Mathematical Economics, Elsevier, vol. 73(C), pages 103-110.
    45. Johnson, Scott & Pratt, John W & Zeckhauser, Richard J, 1990. "Efficiency Despite Mutually Payoff-Relevant Private Information: The Finite Case," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 58(4), pages 873-900, July.
    46. Abreu, Dilip & Matsushima, Hitoshi, 1992. "A Response [Virtual Implementation in Iteratively Undominated Strategies I: Complete Information]," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 60(6), pages 1439-1442, November.
    47. Matsushima, Hitoshi, 1990. "Dominant strategy mechanisms with mutually payoff-relevant private information and with public information," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 34(2), pages 109-112, October.
    48. Saporiti, Alejandro, 2014. "Securely implementable social choice rules with partially honest agents," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 154(C), pages 216-228.
    49. Hitoshi Matsushima, 2021. "Assignments with Ethical Concerns," CARF F-Series CARF-F-514, Center for Advanced Research in Finance, Faculty of Economics, The University of Tokyo.
    50. Gibbard, Allan, 1973. "Manipulation of Voting Schemes: A General Result," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 41(4), pages 587-601, July.
    51. Bergemann & Morris, . "An Introduction to Robust Mechanism Design," Foundations and Trends(R) in Microeconomics, now publishers, vol. 8(3), pages 169-230.
    52. Kartik, Navin & Ottaviani, Marco & Squintani, Francesco, 2007. "Credulity, lies, and costly talk," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 134(1), pages 93-116, May.
    53. Aoyagi, Masaki, 1998. "Correlated Types and Bayesian Incentive Compatible Mechanisms with Budget Balance," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 79(1), pages 142-151, March.
    54. Abreu, Dilip & Matsushima, Hitoshi, 1992. "Virtual Implementation in Iteratively Undominated Strategies: Complete Information," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 60(5), pages 993-1008, September.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Matsushima, Hitoshi, 2022. "Epistemological implementation of social choice functions," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 136(C), pages 389-402.
    2. Hitoshi Matsushima, 2022. "Honesty and Epistemological Implementation of Social Choice Functions with Asymmetric Information," CARF F-Series CARF-F-549, Center for Advanced Research in Finance, Faculty of Economics, The University of Tokyo.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Hitoshi Matsushima & Shunya Noda, 2020. "Epistemological Mechanism Design (Revised version of CARF-F-496)," CARF F-Series CARF-F-498, Center for Advanced Research in Finance, Faculty of Economics, The University of Tokyo, revised Feb 2021.
    2. Hitoshi Matsushima, 2020. "Implementation, Honesty, and Common Knowledge," CARF F-Series CARF-F-500, Center for Advanced Research in Finance, Faculty of Economics, The University of Tokyo.
    3. Hitoshi Matsushima & Shunya Noda, 2020. "Unique Information Elicitation," CARF F-Series CARF-F-496, Center for Advanced Research in Finance, Faculty of Economics, The University of Tokyo.
    4. Altun, Ozan Altuğ & Barlo, Mehmet & Dalkıran, Nuh Aygün, 2023. "Implementation with a sympathizer," Mathematical Social Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 121(C), pages 36-49.
    5. Lombardi, M. & Yoshihara, N., 2018. "Treading a fine line: (Im)possibilities for Nash implementation with partially-honest individuals," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 111(C), pages 203-216.
    6. Michele Lombardi & Naoki Yoshihara, 2017. "Treading a Â…fine line: (Im)possibilities for Nash implementation with partially-honest individuals," Working Papers SDES-2017-14, Kochi University of Technology, School of Economics and Management, revised Aug 2017.
    7. Michele Lombardi & Naoki Yoshihara, 2020. "Partially-honest Nash implementation: a full characterization," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 70(3), pages 871-904, October.
    8. Savva, Foivos, 2018. "Strong implementation with partially honest individuals," Journal of Mathematical Economics, Elsevier, vol. 78(C), pages 27-34.
    9. Hitoshi Matsushima, 2022. "Honesty and Epistemological Implementation of Social Choice Functions with Asymmetric Information," CARF F-Series CARF-F-549, Center for Advanced Research in Finance, Faculty of Economics, The University of Tokyo.
    10. Mukherjee, Saptarshi & Muto, Nozomu & Ramaekers, Eve, 2017. "Implementation in undominated strategies with partially honest agents," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 104(C), pages 613-631.
    11. Lombardi, Michele & Yoshihara, Naoki, 2016. "Partially-honest Nash Implementation with Non-connected Honesty Standards," Discussion Paper Series 633, Institute of Economic Research, Hitotsubashi University.
    12. Heller, Yuval & Sturrock, David, 2017. "Promises and Endogenous Reneging Costs," MPRA Paper 78803, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    13. Hagiwara, Makoto, 2019. "Double implementation without no-veto-power," Mathematical Social Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 101(C), pages 124-130.
    14. Michele Lombardi & Naoki Yoshihara, 2017. "Natural implementation with semi-responsible agents in pure exchange economies," International Journal of Game Theory, Springer;Game Theory Society, vol. 46(4), pages 1015-1036, November.
    15. Hitoshi Matsushima, 2021. "Partial ex-post verifiability and unique implementation of social choice functions," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 56(3), pages 549-567, April.
    16. Ortner, Juan, 2015. "Direct implementation with minimally honest individuals," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 90(C), pages 1-16.
    17. Roberto Serrano, 2003. "The Theory of Implementation of Social Choice Rules," Working Papers 2003-19, Brown University, Department of Economics.
    18. Savva, Foivos, 2021. "Motives and implementation with rights structures," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 204(C).
    19. Heller, Yuval & Sturrock, David, 2020. "Promises and endogenous reneging costs," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 187(C).
    20. Hitoshi Matsushima, 2013. "Process manipulation in unique implementation," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 41(4), pages 883-893, October.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • C72 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Game Theory and Bargaining Theory - - - Noncooperative Games
    • D71 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - Social Choice; Clubs; Committees; Associations
    • D78 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - Positive Analysis of Policy Formulation and Implementation
    • H41 - Public Economics - - Publicly Provided Goods - - - Public Goods

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:cfi:fseres:cf518. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/catokjp.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.