Designing binary social decisions
Authors: Kirneva Margarita, Núñez Matías
Abstract
We design a mechanism, Majority voting with random checks, that fully implements the majority rule for binary social decisions. After a simultaneous vote over the two options, the winner must be confirmed by at least one agent from a random sample of agents voting sequentially. The mechanism incentivizes agents to act truthfully as a lottery is held if no agent confirms the outcome. Our mechanism also reduces by almost half the number of stages required for implementation. Furthermore, we extend our results to incomplete information and abstention and introduce additional implementation mechanisms based on the concept of network formation
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Abstract
We introduce \emph{informational punishment} to the design of mechanisms that compete with an exogenous status quo mechanism: Players can send garbled public messages with some delay, and others cannot commit to ignoring them. Optimal informational punishment ensures that full participation is without loss, even if any single player can publicly enforce the status quo mechanism. Informational punishment permits using a standard revelation principle, is independent of the mechanism designer's objective, and operates exclusively off the equilibrium path. It is robust to refinements and applies in informed-principal settings. We provide conditions that make it robust to opportunistic signal des…
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Abstract
We propose and investigate a model for mate searching and marriage in large societies based on a stochastic matching process and simple decision rules. Agents have preferences among themselves given by some probability distribution. They randomly search for better mates, forming new couples and breaking apart in the process. Marriage is implemented in the model by adding the decision of stopping searching for a better mate when the affinity between a couple is higher than a certain fixed amount. We show that the average utility in the system with marriage can be higher than in the system without it. Part of our results can be summarized in what sounds like a piece of advice: don't marry the …
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Abstract
I study a model of information acquisition and transmission in which the sender's ability to misreport her findings is limited. In equilibrium, the sender only influences the receiver by choosing to remain selectively ignorant, rather than by deceiving her about the discoveries. Although deception does not occur, I highlight how deception possibilities determine what information the sender chooses to acquire and transmit. I then turn to comparative statics, characterizing in which sense the sender benefits from her claims being more verifiable, showing this is akin to increasing her commitment power. Finally, I characterize sender- and receiver-optimal falsification environments.
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Abstract
I study the optimal pricing process for selling a unit good to a buyer with prospect theory preferences. In the presence of probability weighting, the buyer is dynamically inconsistent and can be either sophisticated or naive about her own inconsistency. If the buyer is naive, the uniquely optimal mechanism is to sell a ``loot box'' that delivers the good with some constant probability in each period. In contrast, if the buyer is sophisticated, the uniquely optimal mechanism introduces worst-case insurance: after successive failures in obtaining the good from all previous loot boxes, the buyer can purchase the good at full price.
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Optimal Procurement Design: A Reduced Form ApproachKun Zhang · 2025 · Theoretical Economics · AI summary available
Abstract
Standard procurement models assume that the buyer knows the quality of the good at the time of procurement; however, in many settings, the quality is learned only long after the transaction. We study procurement problems in which the buyer's valuation of the supplied good depends directly on its quality, which is unverifiable and unobservable to the buyer. For a broad class of procurement problems, we identify procurement mechanisms maximizing any weighted average of the buyer's expected payoff and social surplus. The optimal mechanism can be implemented by an auction that restricts sellers to submit bids within specific intervals.
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From Doubt to Devotion: Trials and Learning-Based PricingTan Gan, Nicholas Wu · 2023 · Theoretical Economics · AI summary available
Abstract
An informed seller designs a dynamic mechanism to sell an experience good. The seller has partial information about the product match, which affects the buyer's private consumption experience. We characterize equilibrium mechanisms of this dynamic informed principal problem. The belief gap between the informed seller and the uninformed buyer, coupled with the buyer's learning, gives rise to mechanisms that provide the skeptical buyer with limited access to the product and an option to upgrade if the buyer is swayed by a good experience. Depending on the seller's screening technology, this takes the form of free/discounted trials or tiered pricing, which are prevalent in digital markets. In c…
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The Core of an Economy with an Endogenous Social Division of LabourRobert P. Gilles · 2018 · Theoretical Economics · Not summarized yet
Abstract
This paper considers the core of a competitive market economy with an endogenous social division of labour. The theory is founded on the notion of a "consumer-producer", who consumes as well as produces commodities. First, we show that the Core of such an economy with an endogenous social division of labour can be founded on deviations of coalitions of arbitrary size, extending the seminal insights of Vind and Schmeidler for pure exchange economies. Furthermore, we establish the equivalence between the Core and the set of competitive equilibria for continuum economies with an endogenous social division of labour. Our analysis also concludes that self-organisation in a social division of labo…
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Spinoza, Leibniz, Kant, and WeylMichael H. Freedman · 2022 · Theoretical Economics · Not summarized yet
Abstract
The paper describes a funding mechanism called Quadratic Finance (QF) and deploys a bit of calculus to show that within a very clean and simple linear model QF maximizes social utility. They differentiate the social utility function. The mathematical content of this note is that by taking one further derivative, one may also deduce that QF is the unique solution.
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