On mechanisms eliciting ordinal preferences

Artikel

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.

Object Details

• Language: Englisch

References and Relationships

• Bibliographic citation: Journal: Theoretical Economics ; ISSN: 1555-7561 ; Volume: 13 ; Year: 2018 ; Issue: 3 ; Pages: 1275-1318 ; New Haven, CT: The Econometric Society

Classification and Topics

• Classification: Wirtschaft ; Criteria for Decision-Making under Risk and Uncertainty ; Asymmetric and Private Information; Mechanism Design
• Subject: Cardinal extension ; ex-post implementation ; interdependence ; ordinal mechanism ; robust mechanism design

Contributors, Places and Time

• Event: Geistige Schöpfung
• (who): Carroll, Gabriel
• Event: Veröffentlichung
• (who): The Econometric Society
• (where): New Haven, CT
• (when): 2018

Further information

• DOI: doi:10.3982/TE2774
• Handle: http://hdl.handle.net/10419/197177
• Last update: 10.03.2025, 11:43 AM CET