Individually Rational, Balanced-Budget Bayesian Mechanisms and the

We investigate the issue of implementation via individually rational ex-post budget-balanced Bayesian mechanisms. We demonstrate that all social choice rules that generate a nonnegative ex-ante surplus, including ex-post efficient ones, can generically be implemented via such mechanisms for any profile of the utility functions. The aggregate expected surplus in these mechanisms can be distributed in an arbitrary way. Also generically, any ex-post efficient social choice rule can be implemented in an informed principal framework, i.e. when the mechanism is offered by one of the informed parties. Only ex-post efficient social choice rules that allocate all surplus to the party designing the mechanism are both sequential equilibrium outcomes and neutral optima, i.e. outcomes that can never be blocked. This result implies that even an informed principal can extract all surplus from players in a Bayesian mechanismmechanism design, individual rationality, ex-post budget balancing, surplus allocation, informed principal.

Equivalence of Resource/Opportunity Egalitarianism and Welfare Egalitarianism in Quasilinear Domains

We study the allocation of indivisible goods when monetary transfers are possible and preferences are quasilinear. We show that the only allocation mechanism (upto Pareto-indifference) that satisfies the axioms supporting resource and opportunity egalitarianism is the one that equalizes the welfares. We present alternative characterizations, and budget properties of this mechanism and discuss how it would ensure fair compensation in government requisitions and condemnations.egalitarianism, egalitarian-equivalence, no-envy, distributive justice, allocation of indivisible goods and money, fair auctions, the Groves mechanisms, strategy-proofness, population monotonicity, cost monotonicity, government requisitions, eminent domain

When queueing is better than push and shove

We address the scheduling problem of reordering an existing queue into its efficient order through trade. To that end, we consider individually rational and balanced budget direct and indirect mechanisms. We show that this class of mechanisms allows us to form efficient queues provided that existing property rights for the service are small enough to enable trade between the agents. In particular, we show on the one hand that no queue under a fully deterministic service schedule such as first-come, first-serve can be dissolved efficiently and meet our requirements. If, on the other hand, the alternative is service anarchy (ie. a random queue), every existing queue can be transformed into an efficient order.Scheduling; Queueing; Mechanism design

When Queuening is Better than Push and Shove

We address the scheduling problem of reordering an existing queue into its efficient order through trade. To that end, we consider individually rational and balanced budget direct and indirect mechanisms. We show that this class of mechanisms allows us to form efficient queues provided that existing property rights for the service are small enough to enable trade between the agents. In particular, we show on the one hand that no queue under a fully deterministic service schedule such as first-come, first-serve can be dissolved efficiently and meet our requirements. If, on the other hand, the alternative is service anarchy (ie. a random queue), every existing queue can be transformed into an efficient order.Scheduling, Queueing, Mechanism design