IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/nwu/cmsems/1372.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Foundations of Dominant Strategy Mechanisms

Author

Listed:
  • Kim-Sau Chung
  • Jeffrey C. Ely

Abstract

Robert Wilson criticizes applied game theory's reliance on common-knowledge assumptions. In reaction to Wilson's critique, the recent literature of mechanism design has adopted the goal of finding detail-free mechanisms in order to eliminate this reliance. In practice this has meant restricting attention to simple mechanisms such as dominant-strategy mechanisms. However, there has been little theoretical foundation for this approach. In particular it is not clear the search for an optimal mechanism that does not rely on common-knowledge assumption would lead to simpler mechanisms rather than more complicated ones. This paper tries to fill the void. In the context of an expected revenue maximizing auctioneer, we investigate some foundations for using simple, dominant-strategy auctions. Copyright 2007, Wiley-Blackwell.
(This abstract was borrowed from another version of this item.)

Suggested Citation

  • Kim-Sau Chung & Jeffrey C. Ely, 2003. "Foundations of Dominant Strategy Mechanisms," Discussion Papers 1372, Northwestern University, Center for Mathematical Studies in Economics and Management Science.
  • Handle: RePEc:nwu:cmsems:1372
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.kellogg.northwestern.edu/research/math/papers/1372.pdf
    File Function: main text
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Neeman, Zvika, 2004. "The relevance of private information in mechanism design," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 117(1), pages 55-77, July.
    2. Roger B. Myerson, 1978. "Optimal Auction Design," Discussion Papers 362, Northwestern University, Center for Mathematical Studies in Economics and Management Science.
    3. Ilya Segal, 2003. "Optimal Pricing Mechanisms with Unknown Demand," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 93(3), pages 509-529, June.
    4. 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..
    5. 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..
    6. 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).
    7. Barton L. Lipman, 2003. "Finite Order Implications of Common Priors," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 71(4), pages 1255-1267, July.
    8. Morris, Stephen, 1995. "The Common Prior Assumption in Economic Theory," Economics and Philosophy, Cambridge University Press, vol. 11(2), pages 227-253, October.
    9. Motty Perry & Philip J. Reny, 2002. "An Efficient Auction," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 70(3), pages 1199-1212, May.
    10. Neeman, Zvika, 2003. "The effectiveness of English auctions," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 43(2), pages 214-238, May.
    11. Partha Dasgupta & Eric Maskin, 2000. "Efficient Auctions," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Oxford University Press, vol. 115(2), pages 341-388.
    12. Cremer, Jacques & McLean, Richard P, 1985. "Optimal Selling Strategies under Uncertainty for a Discriminating Monopolist When Demands Are Interdependent," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 53(2), pages 345-361, March.
    13. Roger B. Myerson, 1981. "Optimal Auction Design," Mathematics of Operations Research, INFORMS, vol. 6(1), pages 58-73, February.
    14. Faruk Gul, 1998. "A Comment on Aumann's Bayesian View," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 66(4), pages 923-928, July.
    15. Cremer, Jacques & McLean, Richard P, 1988. "Full Extraction of the Surplus in Bayesian and Dominant Strategy Auctions," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 56(6), pages 1247-1257, November.
    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. 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.
    2. Qin, Cheng-Zhong & Yang, Chun-Lei, 2009. "An Explicit Approach to Modeling Finite-Order Type Spaces and Applications," University of California at Santa Barbara, Economics Working Paper Series qt8hq7j89k, Department of Economics, UC Santa Barbara.
    3. Philippe Jehiel & Benny Moldovanu, 2005. "Allocative and Informational Externalities in Auctions and Related Mechanisms," Levine's Bibliography 784828000000000490, UCLA Department of Economics.
    4. Li, Yunan, 2017. "Approximation in mechanism design with interdependent values," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 103(C), pages 225-253.
    5. 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..
    6. Qin, Cheng-Zhong & Yang, Chun-Lei, 2013. "Finite-order type spaces and applications," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 148(2), pages 689-719.
    7. , & , & ,, 2006. "Topologies on types," Theoretical Economics, Econometric Society, vol. 1(3), pages 275-309, September.
    8. Hanming Fang & Stephen Morris, 2012. "Multidimensional Private Value Auctions," World Scientific Book Chapters, in: Robust Mechanism Design The Role of Private Information and Higher Order Beliefs, chapter 9, pages 319-356, World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd..
    9. Dirk Bergemann & Stephen Morris, 2012. "Ex Post Implementation," World Scientific Book Chapters, in: Robust Mechanism Design The Role of Private Information and Higher Order Beliefs, chapter 3, pages 97-152, World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd..
    10. Neeman, Zvika, 2004. "The relevance of private information in mechanism design," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 117(1), pages 55-77, July.
    11. , & ,, 2015. "Implementation with interdependent valuations," Theoretical Economics, Econometric Society, vol. 10(3), September.
    12. Battigalli Pierpaolo & Siniscalchi Marciano, 2003. "Rationalization and Incomplete Information," The B.E. Journal of Theoretical Economics, De Gruyter, vol. 3(1), pages 1-46, June.
    13. Wang, Dazhong & Xu, Xinyi, 2022. "Optimal equity auction with interdependent valuations," Journal of Mathematical Economics, Elsevier, vol. 100(C).
    14. Gizatulina, Alia & Hellwig, Martin, 2014. "Beliefs, payoffs, information: On the robustness of the BDP property in models with endogenous beliefs," Journal of Mathematical Economics, Elsevier, vol. 51(C), pages 136-153.
    15. 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.
    16. Chen, Yi-Chun & Kunimoto, Takashi & Sun, Yifei, 2023. "Continuous implementation with payoff knowledge," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 209(C).
    17. Obara Ichiro, 2008. "The Full Surplus Extraction Theorem with Hidden Actions," The B.E. Journal of Theoretical Economics, De Gruyter, vol. 8(1), pages 1-28, March.
    18. Pierpaolo Battigalli, 2006. "Rationalization In Signaling Games: Theory And Applications," International Game Theory Review (IGTR), World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd., vol. 8(01), pages 67-93.
    19. Martin Hellwig & Felix Bierbrauer, 2009. "Public Good Provision in a Large Economy," 2009 Meeting Papers 1062, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    20. Gärtner, Dennis L. & Schmutzler, Armin, 2009. "Merger negotiations and ex-post regret," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 144(4), pages 1636-1664, July.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • D42 - Microeconomics - - Market Structure, Pricing, and Design - - - Monopoly

    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:nwu:cmsems:1372. 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: Fran Walker (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/cmnwuus.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.