IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/boc/bocoec/1065.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Allocation Mechanisms with Mixture-Averse Preferences

Author

Listed:
  • David Dillenberger

    (University of Pennsylvania)

  • Uzi Segal

    (Boston College)

Abstract

Consider an economy with equal amounts of N types of goods, to be allocated to agents with strict quasi-convex preferences over lotteries. We show that ex-ante, all feasible and Pareto efficient al- locations give almost all agents a binary lottery. Therefore, even if all preferences are the same, some identical agents necessarily receive different lotteries. Our results imply that many of the popular alloca- tion mechanisms used in practice are not ex-ante efficient. Assuming the reduction of compound lotteries axiom, social welfare deteriorates by first randomizing over these binary lotteries. Full ex-ante equality can be achieved if agents satisfy the compound independence axiom.

Suggested Citation

  • David Dillenberger & Uzi Segal, 2024. "Allocation Mechanisms with Mixture-Averse Preferences," Boston College Working Papers in Economics 1065, Boston College Department of Economics.
    • Handle: RePEc:boc:bocoec:1065
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://fmwww.bc.edu/EC-P/wp1065.pdf
    File Function: main text
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Mohammed Abdellaoui & Peter Klibanoff & Lætitia Placido, 2015. "Experiments on Compound Risk in Relation to Simple Risk and to Ambiguity," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 61(6), pages 1306-1322, June.
    2. Maniquet, Francois, 1999. "A strong incompatibility between efficiency and equity in non-convex economies," Journal of Mathematical Economics, Elsevier, vol. 32(4), pages 467-474, December.
    3. Quiggin, John, 1982. "A theory of anticipated utility," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 3(4), pages 323-343, December.
    4. Kirchkamp, Oliver & Oechssler, Joerg & Sofianos, Andis, 2021. "The Binary Lottery Procedure does not induce risk neutrality in the Holt & Laury and Eckel & Grossman tasks," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 185(C), pages 348-369.
    5. Tversky, Amos & Kahneman, Daniel, 1992. "Advances in Prospect Theory: Cumulative Representation of Uncertainty," Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, Springer, vol. 5(4), pages 297-323, October.
    6. Bogomolnaia, Anna & Moulin, Herve, 2001. "A New Solution to the Random Assignment Problem," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 100(2), pages 295-328, October.
    7. Sun, Yeneng, 2006. "The exact law of large numbers via Fubini extension and characterization of insurable risks," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 126(1), pages 31-69, January.
    8. Mas-Colell, Andreu & Whinston, Michael D. & Green, Jerry R., 1995. "Microeconomic Theory," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780195102680, Decembrie.
    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. Aurélien Baillon & Yoram Halevy & Chen Li, 2022. "Experimental elicitation of ambiguity attitude using the random incentive system," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 25(3), pages 1002-1023, June.
    2. Soo Hong Chew & Bin Miao & Songfa Zhong, 2023. "Ellsberg meets Keynes at an urn," Quantitative Economics, Econometric Society, vol. 14(3), pages 1133-1162, July.
    3. repec:hal:journl:hal-03031751 is not listed on IDEAS
    4. Maren Baars & Michael Goedde‐Menke, 2022. "Ignorance illusion in decisions under risk: The impact of perceived expertise on probability weighting," Journal of Risk & Insurance, The American Risk and Insurance Association, vol. 89(1), pages 35-62, March.
    5. Ilke Aydogan & Loïc Berger & Valentina Bosetti & Ning Liu, 2023. "Three Layers of Uncertainty," Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 21(5), pages 2209-2236.
    6. Dorian Jullien, 2018. "Under Risk, Over Time, Regarding Other People: Language and Rationality within Three Dimensions," Research in the History of Economic Thought and Methodology, in: Including a Symposium on Latin American Monetary Thought: Two Centuries in Search of Originality, volume 36, pages 119-155, Emerald Group Publishing Limited.
    7. Mohammed Abdellaoui & Horst Zank, 2023. "Source and rank-dependent utility," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 75(4), pages 949-981, May.
    8. Wakker, Peter P. & Yang, Jingni, 2019. "A powerful tool for analyzing concave/convex utility and weighting functions," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 181(C), pages 143-159.
    9. Florian Schneider & Martin Schonger, 2015. "An experimental test of the Anscombe-Aumann Monotonicity axiom," ECON - Working Papers 207, Department of Economics - University of Zurich, revised May 2017.
    10. Dorian Jullien, 2016. "Under Uncertainty, Over Time and Regarding Other People: Rationality in 3D," GREDEG Working Papers 2016-20, Groupe de REcherche en Droit, Economie, Gestion (GREDEG CNRS), Université Côte d'Azur, France.
    11. Meng, Jingyi & Webb, Craig S. & Zank, Horst, 2024. "Mixture independence foundations for expected utility," Journal of Mathematical Economics, Elsevier, vol. 111(C).
    12. Safra, Zvi & Segal, Uzi, 2024. "Large compound lotteries," Journal of Mathematical Economics, Elsevier, vol. 113(C).
    13. Pedro Albarrán & Judit Alonso & Carmen Herrero & Giovanni Ponti & Marcello Sartarelli & Diletta Topazio, 2025. "An experiment on outcome uncertainty," Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, Springer, vol. 70(2), pages 147-170, April.
    14. Jonathan W. Leland & Mark Schneider & Jonathan Leland, 2016. "Axioms for Salience Perception," Working Papers 16-15, Chapman University, Economic Science Institute.
    15. Tim J. Boonen & Fangda Liu & Ruodu Wang, 2021. "Competitive equilibria in a comonotone market," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 72(4), pages 1217-1255, November.
    16. Haim Levy & Enrico G. De Giorgi & Thorsten Hens, 2012. "Two Paradigms and Nobel Prizes in Economics: a Contradiction or Coexistence?," European Financial Management, European Financial Management Association, vol. 18(2), pages 163-182, March.
    17. Gao, Kun & Sun, Lijun & Yang, Ying & Meng, Fanyu & Qu, Xiaobo, 2021. "Cumulative prospect theory coupled with multi-attribute decision making for modeling travel behavior," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 148(C), pages 1-21.
    18. Dillenberger, David & Segal, Uzi, 2017. "Skewed noise," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 169(C), pages 344-364.
    19. Filiz-Ozbay, Emel & Gulen, Huseyin & Masatlioglu, Yusufcan & Ozbay, Erkut Y., 2022. "Comparing ambiguous urns with different sizes," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 199(C).
    20. Bruno Jullien & Bernard Salanie, 2000. "Estimating Preferences under Risk: The Case of Racetrack Bettors," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 108(3), pages 503-530, June.
    21. Cappelen, Alexander W. & Sørensen, Erik Ø. & Tungodden, Bertil & Xu, Xiaogeng, 2025. "Risk taking on behalf of others: Does the timing of uncertainty revelation matter?," Discussion Paper Series in Economics 13/2025, Norwegian School of Economics, Department of Economics.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    JEL classification:

    • C78 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Game Theory and Bargaining Theory - - - Bargaining Theory; Matching Theory
    • D61 - Microeconomics - - Welfare Economics - - - Allocative Efficiency; Cost-Benefit Analysis
    • D81 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Criteria for Decision-Making under Risk and Uncertainty

    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:boc:bocoec:1065. 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: Christopher F Baum (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/debocus.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.