IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/ecolet/v252y2025ics0165176525001703.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

An ordinal solution to King Solomon’s dilemma

Author

Listed:
  • Gans, Joshua S.
  • Holden, Richard

Abstract

This paper examines mechanisms that can resolve ownership disputes when some agents know who the legitimate owner is, but others do not. The mechanism proposed is called “Solomonic” because it resolves the biblical dispute facing King Solomon over the true mother of a baby. It involves two stages of messages (claims) and yields truthful revelation using only ordinal restrictions on preferences.

Suggested Citation

  • Gans, Joshua S. & Holden, Richard, 2025. "An ordinal solution to King Solomon’s dilemma," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 252(C).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:ecolet:v:252:y:2025:i:c:s0165176525001703
    DOI: 10.1016/j.econlet.2025.112333
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0165176525001703
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.econlet.2025.112333?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to

    for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Moore, John & Repullo, Rafael, 1988. "Subgame Perfect Implementation," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 56(5), pages 1191-1220, September.
    2. Philippe Aghion & Drew Fudenberg & Richard Holden & Takashi Kunimoto & Olivier Tercieux, 2012. "Subgame-Perfect Implementation Under Information Perturbations," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 127(4), pages 1843-1881.
    3. Joshua S. Gans & Richard Holden, 2023. "A Solomonic Solution to Blockchain Front-Running," AEA Papers and Proceedings, American Economic Association, vol. 113, pages 248-252, May.
    4. Holden, Richard T. & Fudenberg, Drew & Aghion, Philippe, 2009. "Subgame Perfect Implementation with Almost Perfect Information and the Hold-Up Problem," Scholarly Articles 3708929, Harvard University Department of Economics.
    5. Perry, Motty & Reny, Philip J., 1999. "A General Solution to King Solomon's Dilemma," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 26(2), pages 279-285, January.
    6. Guha, Brishti, 2014. "Reinterpreting King Solomon's problem: Malice and mechanism design," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 98(C), pages 125-132.
    7. Yi-Chun Chen & Richard Holden & Takashi Kunimoto & Yifei Sun & Tom Wilkening, 2023. "Getting Dynamic Implementation to Work," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 131(2), pages 285-387.
    8. Joshua S. Gans & Richard T. Holden, 2022. "Mechanism Design Approaches to Blockchain Consensus," NBER Working Papers 30189, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    9. Olszewski, Wojciech, 2003. "A simple and general solution to King Solomon's problem," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 42(2), pages 315-318, February.
    10. H. Reiju Mihara, 2012. "The Second-Price Auction Solves King Solomon'S Dilemma," The Japanese Economic Review, Japanese Economic Association, vol. 63(3), pages 420-429, September.
    11. repec:hal:pseose:hal-00812781 is not listed on IDEAS
    12. Cheng-Zhong Qin & Chun-Lei Yang, 2009. "Make a guess: a robust mechanism for King Solomon’s dilemma," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 39(2), pages 259-268, May.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. Elbittar, Alexander & Di Giannatale, Sonia, 2017. "“Neither I nor you shall have him”: An experimental study of the King Solomon's Dilemma," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 70(C), pages 55-69.
    2. Makoto Hagiwara & Fumihiro Yonekura, 2020. "Implementation in Iterative Elimination of Obviously Dominated Strategies: An Experiment on King Solomon's Dilemma," Discussion Paper Series DP2020-17, Research Institute for Economics & Business Administration, Kobe University.
    3. Brishti Guha, 2017. "Testing for Malice," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 37(1), pages 327-335.
    4. Echenique, Federico & Núñez, Matías, 2025. "Price and Choose," Department of Economics, Working Paper Series qt5dw4g7k5, Department of Economics, Institute for Business and Economic Research, UC Berkeley.
    5. Alexander Elbittar & Sonia B. Di Giannatale, 2010. "King Solomon's Dilemma: An Experimental Study on Implementation," Working Papers DTE 477, CIDE, División de Economía.
    6. Makoto Hagiwara & Fumihiro Yonekura, 2024. "King Solomon’s dilemma: an experiment on implementation in iterative elimination of (obviously) dominated strategies," Review of Economic Design, Springer;Society for Economic Design, vol. 28(1), pages 1-19, February.
    7. Guha, Brishti, 2014. "Reinterpreting King Solomon's problem: Malice and mechanism design," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 98(C), pages 125-132.
    8. Ernst Fehr & Michael Powell & Tom Wilkening, 2014. "Handing Out Guns at a Knife Fight: Behavioral Limitations of Subgame-Perfect Implementation," CESifo Working Paper Series 4948, CESifo.
    9. Bester, Helmut & Krähmer, Daniel, 2012. "Exit options in incomplete contracts with asymmetric information," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 147(5), pages 1947-1968.
    10. Fehr, Ernst & Powell, Michael & Wilkening, Tom, 2021. "Behavioral Constraints on the Design of Subgame-Perfect Implementation Mechanisms," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, vol. 111(4), pages 1055-1091.
    11. Cheng-Zhong Qin & Chun-Lei Yang, 2009. "Make a guess: a robust mechanism for King Solomon’s dilemma," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 39(2), pages 259-268, May.
    12. H. Reiju Mihara, 2012. "The Second-Price Auction Solves King Solomon'S Dilemma," The Japanese Economic Review, Japanese Economic Association, vol. 63(3), pages 420-429, September.
    13. Chen, Yi-Chun & Sun, Yifei, 2015. "Full implementation in backward induction," Journal of Mathematical Economics, Elsevier, vol. 59(C), pages 71-76.
    14. Takahashi, Satoru & Tercieux, Olivier, 2020. "Robust equilibrium outcomes in sequential games under almost common certainty of payoffs," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 188(C).
    15. repec:hal:pseose:halshs-00754592 is not listed on IDEAS
    16. 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.
    17. Hayashi, Takashi & Lombardi, Michele, 2019. "One-step-ahead implementation," Journal of Mathematical Economics, Elsevier, vol. 83(C), pages 110-126.
    18. Kartik, Navin & Tercieux, Olivier & Holden, Richard, 2014. "Simple mechanisms and preferences for honesty," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 83(C), pages 284-290.
    19. Yeon-Koo Che & Elisabetta Iossa & Patrick Rey, 2021. "Prizes versus Contracts as Incentives for Innovation [Subgame Perfect Implementation Under Information Perturbations]," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 88(5), pages 2149-2178.
    20. Hagiwara, Makoto, 2025. "Behavioral subgame perfect implementation," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 233(C).
    21. Bag, Parimal Kanti & Sabourian, Hamid, 2005. "Distributing awards efficiently: More on King Solomon's problem," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 53(1), pages 43-58, October.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    JEL classification:

    • D82 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Asymmetric and Private Information; Mechanism Design
    • C72 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Game Theory and Bargaining Theory - - - Noncooperative Games
    • K11 - Law and Economics - - Basic Areas of Law - - - Property Law

    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:eee:ecolet:v:252:y:2025:i:c:s0165176525001703. 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: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/ecolet .

    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.