Research Details

Abstract

An allocation mechanism is a function mapping agents' reported preferences into allocations. Each agent's preferences, however, are private to himself, so in reporting them he can misrepresent them if that is advantageous in the sense of achieving a more preferable allocation. A strategy-proof allocation mechanism eliminates incentives to misrepresent: each agent, no matter what his preferences are and no matter what preferences other agents report, maximizes by reporting his preferences truthfully. While the Gibbard-Satterthwaite theorem establishes that no useful strategy-proof allocation mechanisms exist in general, they do exist for a number of specific, economically important classes of allocation problems.

Type

Book Chapter

Author(s)

Mark Satterthwaite

Date Published

2008

Citations

Satterthwaite, Mark. 2008. Strategy-Proof Allocation Mechanisms.