Secure Implementation: Strategy-Proof Mechanisms Reconsidered

Tatsuyoshi Saijo (), Tomas Sjostrom and Takehiko Yamato

No 1174, Working Papers from California Institute of Technology, Division of the Humanities and Social Sciences

Abstract: Strategy-proofness, requiring that truth-telling is a dominant strategy, is a standard concept in social choice theory. However, the concept of strategy-proofness has serious drawbacks. First, announcing one's true preference may not be a unique dominant strategy, and using the wrong dominant strategy may lead to the wrong outcome. Second, almost all strategy-proof mechanisms have a continuum of Nash equilibria, and most of which produce the wrong outcome. Third, experimental evidence shows that most of the strategy-proof mechanisms do not work well. We argue that a possible solution to this dilemma is to require double implementation in Nash equilibrium and in dominant strategies, which we call secure implementation. We characterize environments where secure implementation is possible, and compare it with dominant strategy implementation. An interesting example of secure implementation is a Groves mechanism when preferences are single-peaked.

Pages: 31 pages
Date: 2003-09
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-ind
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Published:

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.hss.caltech.edu/SSPapers/wp1174.pdf (application/pdf)
Our link check indicates that this URL is bad, the error code is: 404 Not Found (http://www.hss.caltech.edu/SSPapers/wp1174.pdf [301 Moved Permanently]--> https://www.hss.caltech.edu/SSPapers/wp1174.pdf)

Related works:
Working Paper: Secure Implementation:Strategy-Proof Mechanisms Reconsidered (2003)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:clt:sswopa:1174

Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from
Working Paper Assistant, Division of the Humanities and Social Sciences, 228-77, Caltech, Pasadena CA 91125

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Working Papers from California Institute of Technology, Division of the Humanities and Social Sciences Working Paper Assistant, Division of the Humanities and Social Sciences, 228-77, Caltech, Pasadena CA 91125.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Victoria Mason ().