1,451 research outputs found
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
Axiomatizing Political Philosophy of Distributive Justice: Equivalence of No-envy and Egalitarian-equivalence with Welfare-egalitarianism
We characterize welfare-egalitarian mechanisms (that are decision-efficient and incentive compatible) with the two fundamental axioms of fairness: no-envy and egalitarian-equivalence. We consider cases where agents have equal rights over external world resources but are individually responsible for their preferences/costs. Our characterization answers the political philosophy question of what kind of welfare differentials allowed if we respect private ownership rights over self and public ownership over external world. We also relate no-envy and egalitarian-equivalence to "equality of what" debate and build a link between resource and opportunity egalitarianism, and welfare-egalitarianism.egalitarianism, egalitarian-equivalence, no-envy, distributive justice, equality of opportunity, resource egalitarianism, private ownership of the self and public ownership of external world, NIMBY problems, allocation of indivisible goods and money, discrete public goods, strategy-proofness.
Undominated Groves Mechanisms
The family of Groves mechanisms, which includes the well-known VCG mechanism
(also known as the Clarke mechanism), is a family of efficient and
strategy-proof mechanisms. Unfortunately, the Groves mechanisms are generally
not budget balanced. That is, under such mechanisms, payments may flow into or
out of the system of the agents, resulting in deficits or reduced utilities for
the agents. We consider the following problem: within the family of Groves
mechanisms, we want to identify mechanisms that give the agents the highest
utilities, under the constraint that these mechanisms must never incur
deficits.
We adopt a prior-free approach. We introduce two general measures for
comparing mechanisms in prior-free settings. We say that a non-deficit Groves
mechanism {\em individually dominates} another non-deficit Groves mechanism
if for every type profile, every agent's utility under is no less than
that under , and this holds with strict inequality for at least one type
profile and one agent. We say that a non-deficit Groves mechanism {\em
collectively dominates} another non-deficit Groves mechanism if for every
type profile, the agents' total utility under is no less than that under
, and this holds with strict inequality for at least one type profile. The
above definitions induce two partial orders on non-deficit Groves mechanisms.
We study the maximal elements corresponding to these two partial orders, which
we call the {\em individually undominated} mechanisms and the {\em collectively
undominated} mechanisms, respectively.Comment: 34 pages. To appear in Journal of AI Research (JAIR
An Introduction to Mechanized Reasoning
Mechanized reasoning uses computers to verify proofs and to help discover new
theorems. Computer scientists have applied mechanized reasoning to economic
problems but -- to date -- this work has not yet been properly presented in
economics journals. We introduce mechanized reasoning to economists in three
ways. First, we introduce mechanized reasoning in general, describing both the
techniques and their successful applications. Second, we explain how mechanized
reasoning has been applied to economic problems, concentrating on the two
domains that have attracted the most attention: social choice theory and
auction theory. Finally, we present a detailed example of mechanized reasoning
in practice by means of a proof of Vickrey's familiar theorem on second-price
auctions
Undominated Groves Mechanisms
The family of Groves mechanisms, which includes the well-known VCG mechanism (also
known as the Clarke mechanism), is a family of efficient and strategy-proof mechanisms.
Unfortunately, the Groves mechanisms are generally not budget balanced. That is, under
such mechanisms, payments may flow into or out of the system of the agents, resulting
in deficits or reduced utilities for the agents. We consider the following problem: within
the family of Groves mechanisms, we want to identify mechanisms that give the agents the
highest utilities, under the constraint that these mechanisms must never incur deficits.
We adopt a prior-free approach. We introduce two general measures for comparing
mechanisms in prior-free settings. We say that a non-deficit Groves mechanism M in-
dividually dominates another non-deficit Groves mechanism M′ if for every type profile,
every agent’s utility under M is no less than that under M′, and this holds with strict
inequality for at least one type profile and one agent. We say that a non-deficit Groves
mechanism M collectively dominates another non-deficit Groves mechanism M′ if for every
type profile, the agents’ total utility under M is no less than that under M′, and this holds
with strict inequality for at least one type profile. The above definitions induce two partial
orders on non-deficit Groves mechanisms. We study the maximal elements corresponding
to these two partial orders, which we call the individually undominated mechanisms and
the collectively undominated mechanisms, respectively
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