Ignorance is bliss: rationality, information and equilibrium

Sylvain Barde

Working Papers from HAL

Abstract: An information-theoretic thought experiment is developed to provide a methodology for predicting endowment distributions in the absence of information on agent preferences. The allocation problem is first presented as a stylised knapsack problem. Although this knapsack allocation is intractable, the social planner can nevertheless make precise predictions concerning the endowment distribution by using its information-theoretic structure. By construction these predictions do not rest on the rationality of agents. It is also shown, however, that the knapsack problem is equivalent to a congestion game under weak assumptions, which means that the planner can nevertheless evaluate the optimality of the unobserved allocation.

Keywords: potential function; Information theoretic measure; knapsack problem; congestion game; potential function. (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2011-03
Note: View the original document on HAL open archive server: https://sciencespo.hal.science/hal-01069478v1
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (5)

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Related works:
Working Paper: Ignorance is bliss: rationality, information and equilibrium (2011)
Working Paper: Ignorance is bliss: rationality, information and equilibrium (2011)
Working Paper: Ignorance is bliss: rationality, information and equilibrium (2011)
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