Implementation with partial provability

Elchanan Ben-Porath () and Barton Lipman ()

Journal of Economic Theory, 2012, vol. 147, issue 5, 1689-1724

Abstract: We extend implementation theory by allowing the social choice function to depend on more than just the preferences of the agents and allowing agents to support their statements with hard evidence. We show that a simple condition on evidence is necessary for the implementation of a social choice function f when the preferences of the agents are state independent and sufficient for implementation for any preferences (including state dependent) with at least three agents if the social planner can perform small monetary transfers beyond those called for by f. If transfers can be large, f can be implemented in a game with perfect information when there are at least two players under a boundedness assumption. For both results, transfers only occur out of equilibrium. The use of evidence enables implementation which is robust in the sense that the planner needs little information about agentsʼ preferences or beliefs and agents need little information about each othersʼ preferences. Our results are robust to evidence forgery at any strictly positive cost.

Keywords: Implementation; Hard evidence; Mechanism design (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C7 D7 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2012
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (58)

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Working Paper: Implementation with Partial Provability (2010)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:jetheo:v:147:y:2012:i:5:p:1689-1724

DOI: 10.1016/j.jet.2012.01.017

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