IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/tse/wpaper/32881.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

On the Foundations of Ex Post Incentive Compatible Mechanisms

Author

Listed:
  • Yamashita, Takuro
  • Zhu, Shuguang

Abstract

In private-value auction environments, Chung and Ely (2007) establish maxmin and Bayesian foundations for dominant-strategy mechanisms. We first show that similar foundation results for ex post mechanisms hold true even with interdependent values if the interdependence is only cardinal. This includes, for example, the one-dimensional environments of Dasgupta and Maskin (2000) and Bergemann and Morris (2009b). Conversely, if the environment exhibits ordinal interdependence, which is typically the case with multi-dimensional environments (e.g., a player’s private information comprises a noisy signal of the common value of the auctioned good and an idiosyncratic private-value parameter), then in general, ex post mechanisms do not have foundation. That is, there exists a non-ex-post mechanism that achieves strictly higher expected revenue than the optimal ex post mechanism, regardless of the agents’ higher-order beliefs.

Suggested Citation

  • Yamashita, Takuro & Zhu, Shuguang, 2018. "On the Foundations of Ex Post Incentive Compatible Mechanisms," TSE Working Papers 18-938, Toulouse School of Economics (TSE), revised Jan 2021.
    • Handle: RePEc:tse:wpaper:32881
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.tse-fr.eu/sites/default/files/TSE/documents/doc/wp/2018/wp_tse_938.pdf
    File Function: Full text
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Kim-Sau Chung & J.C. Ely, 2007. "Foundations of Dominant-Strategy Mechanisms," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 74(2), pages 447-476.
    2. Ilya Segal, 2003. "Optimal Pricing Mechanisms with Unknown Demand," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 93(3), pages 509-529, June.
    3. Adam Brandenburger & Eddie Dekel, 2014. "Hierarchies of Beliefs and Common Knowledge," World Scientific Book Chapters, in: The Language of Game Theory Putting Epistemics into the Mathematics of Games, chapter 2, pages 31-41, World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd..
    4. 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..
    5. MERTENS, Jean-François & ZAMIR, Shmuel, 1985. "Formulation of Bayesian analysis for games with incomplete information," LIDAM Reprints CORE 608, Université catholique de Louvain, Center for Operations Research and Econometrics (CORE).
    6. Chen, Yi-Chun & Li, Jiangtao, 2018. "Revisiting the foundations of dominant-strategy mechanisms," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 178(C), pages 294-317.
    7. ,, 2006. "Ex post implementation in environments with private goods," Theoretical Economics, Econometric Society, vol. 1(3), pages 369-393, September.
    8. Wilson, Robert B, 1985. "Incentive Efficiency of Double Auctions," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 53(5), pages 1101-1115, September.
    9. Mussa, Michael & Rosen, Sherwin, 1978. "Monopoly and product quality," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 18(2), pages 301-317, August.
    10. Philippe Jehiel & Moritz Meyer-ter-Vehn & Benny Moldovanu & William R. Zame, 2006. "The Limits of ex post Implementation," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 74(3), pages 585-610, May.
    11. Songzi Du, 2018. "Robust Mechanisms Under Common Valuation," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 86(5), pages 1569-1588, September.
    12. Sims, Christopher A., 2003. "Implications of rational inattention," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 50(3), pages 665-690, April.
    13. Takuro Yamashita, 2015. "Implementation in Weakly Undominated Strategies: Optimality of Second-Price Auction and Posted-Price Mechanism," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 82(3), pages 1223-1246.
    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. Barberà, Salvador & Berga, Dolors & Moreno, Bernardo, 2022. "Restricted environments and incentive compatibility in interdependent values models," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 131(C), pages 1-28.
    2. Tilman Börgers & Jiangtao Li, 2019. "Strategically Simple Mechanisms," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 87(6), pages 2003-2035, November.
    3. Wanchang Zhang, 2021. "Random Double Auction: A Robust Bilateral Trading Mechanism," Papers 2105.05427, arXiv.org, revised May 2022.
    4. Pham, Hien & Yamashita, Takuro, 2021. "Auction Design with Heterogeneous Priors," TSE Working Papers 21-1260, Toulouse School of Economics (TSE), revised Mar 2023.
    5. Tilman Börgers, 2017. "(No) Foundations of dominant-strategy mechanisms: a comment on Chung and Ely (2007)," Review of Economic Design, Springer;Society for Economic Design, vol. 21(2), pages 73-82, June.
    6. Satoshi Nakada & Shmuel Nitzan & Takashi Ui, 2022. "Robust Voting under Uncertainty," Working Papers on Central Bank Communication 038, University of Tokyo, Graduate School of Economics.
    7. Wanchang Zhang, 2022. "Robust Private Supply of a Public Good," Papers 2201.00923, arXiv.org, revised Jan 2022.

    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. Satoshi Nakada & Shmuel Nitzan & Takashi Ui, 2022. "Robust Voting under Uncertainty," Working Papers on Central Bank Communication 038, University of Tokyo, Graduate School of Economics.
    2. Kim-Sau Chung & J.C. Ely, 2007. "Foundations of Dominant-Strategy Mechanisms," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 74(2), pages 447-476.
    3. Tang, Rui & Zhang, Mu, 2021. "Maxmin implementation," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 194(C).
    4. Moritz Meyer-ter-Vehn & Stephen Morris, 2012. "The Robustness of Robust Implementation," World Scientific Book Chapters, in: Robust Mechanism Design The Role of Private Information and Higher Order Beliefs, chapter 10, pages 357-373, World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd..
    5. Aviad Heifetz & Zvika Neeman, 2006. "On the Generic (Im)Possibility of Full Surplus Extraction in Mechanism Design," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 74(1), pages 213-233, January.
    6. Emmanuelle Auriol & Robert Gary-Bobo, 2007. "On Robust Constitution Design," Theory and Decision, Springer, vol. 62(3), pages 241-279, May.
    7. Hashimoto, Tadashi, 2018. "The generalized random priority mechanism with budgets," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 177(C), pages 708-733.
    8. Wanchang Zhang, 2022. "Robust Private Supply of a Public Good," Papers 2201.00923, arXiv.org, revised Jan 2022.
    9. Georgy Artemov & Takashi Kunimoto & Roberto Serrano, 2007. "Robust Virtual Implementation with Incomplete Information: Toward a Reinterpretation of the Wilson Doctrine," Working Papers 2007-6, Brown University, Department of Economics.
    10. Georgy Artemov & Takashi Kunimoto & Roberto Serrano, 2007. "Robust virtual implementation with incomplete information: Towards a reinterpretation of the Wilson doctrine," Working Papers 2007-14, Instituto Madrileño de Estudios Avanzados (IMDEA) Ciencias Sociales.
    11. Loertscher, Simon & Marx, Leslie M., 2020. "Asymptotically optimal prior-free clock auctions," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 187(C).
    12. He, Wei & Li, Jiangtao, 2022. "Correlation-robust auction design," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 200(C).
    13. Wanchang Zhang, 2021. "Random Double Auction: A Robust Bilateral Trading Mechanism," Papers 2105.05427, arXiv.org, revised May 2022.
    14. Suzdaltsev, Alex, 2022. "Distributionally robust pricing in independent private value auctions," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 206(C).
    15. Chen, Yi-Chun & Li, Jiangtao, 2018. "Revisiting the foundations of dominant-strategy mechanisms," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 178(C), pages 294-317.
    16. Chen, Yi-Chun & Kunimoto, Takashi & Sun, Yifei, 2023. "Continuous implementation with payoff knowledge," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 209(C).
    17. Müller, Christoph, 2016. "Robust virtual implementation under common strong belief in rationality," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 162(C), pages 407-450.
    18. Chen, Yi-Chun & Mueller-Frank, Manuel & Pai, Mallesh M., 2022. "Continuous implementation with direct revelation mechanisms," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 201(C).
    19. Strzalecki, Tomasz, 2014. "Depth of reasoning and higher order beliefs," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 108(C), pages 108-122.
    20. , & , & ,, 2007. "Interim correlated rationalizability," Theoretical Economics, Econometric Society, vol. 2(1), pages 15-40, March.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • D82 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Asymmetric and Private Information; Mechanism Design
    • D83 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Search; Learning; Information and Knowledge; Communication; Belief; Unawareness

    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:tse:wpaper:32881. 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/tsetofr.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.