On mechanisms eliciting ordinal preferences

Gabriel Carroll

Theoretical Economics, 2018, vol. 13, issue 3

Abstract: When is a mechanism designer justified in only asking for ordinal information about preferences? Simple examples show that, even if the planner's goal (expressed by a social choice correspondence, or SCC) depends only on ordinal information, eliciting cardinal information may help with incentives. However, if agents may be uncertain about their own cardinal preferences, then a strong robustness requirement can justify the focus on ordinal mechanisms. Specifically, when agents' preferences over pure outcomes are strict, if a planner is able to implement an SCC (in ex-post equilibrium) using a mechanism that is robust to interdependence of arbitrary form in cardinal preferences, then there must exist such a mechanism that elicits only ordinal preferences. The strictness assumption can be dropped if we further allow the possibility of non-expected-utility preferences.

Keywords: Cardinal extension; ex-post implementation; interdependence; ordinal mechanism; robust mechanism design (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D81 D82 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2018-10-04
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (5)

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