Robustly Ranking Mechanisms

S-Tier
Journal: American Economic Review
Year: 2012
Volume: 102
Issue: 3
Pages: 325-29

Authors (2)

Score contribution per author:

4.022 = (α=2.01 / 2 authors) × 4.0x S-tier

α: calibrated so average coauthorship-adjusted count equals average raw count

Abstract

For a mechanism designer with an objective such as welfare we propose a method for robustly ranking mechanisms. The method is based on eliminating weakly dominated strategies only, and thus does not require any assumptions about agents' beliefs about each other except full support. We illustrate the usefulness of this method in two examples: bilateral trading and voting. In both examples we show that there are mechanisms that are ranked by our method above dominant strategy mechanisms. These examples question the literature's focus on dominant strategy mechanisms in cases when such mechanisms yield undesirable outcomes.

Technical Details

RePEc Handle
repec:aea:aecrev:v:102:y:2012:i:3:p:325-29
Journal Field
General
Author Count
2
Added to Database
2026-01-24