Virtual implementation in iteratively undominated strategies: complete information

The authors investigate the implementation of social choice functions that map to lotteries over alternatives. They require virtual implementation in iteratively undominated strategies. Under very weak domain restrictions, they show that if there are three or more players, any social choice function may be so implemented. The literature on implementation in Nash equilibrium and its refinements is compromised by its reliance on game forms with unnatural features (for example, "integer games") or "modulo" constructions with mixed strategies arbitrarily excluded. In contrast, the authors' results employ finite (consequently "well-behaved") mechanisms and allow for mixed strategies. Copyright 1992 by The Econometric Society.

[1]  William Vickrey,et al.  Utility, Strategy, and Social Decision Rules , 1960 .

[2]  Michael Dummett,et al.  Stability in Voting , 1961 .

[3]  Richard J. Zeckhauser,et al.  Majority Rule with Lotteries on Alternatives , 1969 .

[4]  Robin Farquharson,et al.  Theory of voting , 1969 .

[5]  A. Gibbard Manipulation of Voting Schemes: A General Result , 1973 .

[6]  Prasanta K. Pattanaik,et al.  On the stability of sincere voting situations , 1973 .

[7]  M. Satterthwaite Strategy-proofness and Arrow's conditions: Existence and correspondence theorems for voting procedures and social welfare functions , 1975 .

[8]  L. Hurwicz On informationally decentralized systems , 1977 .

[9]  A. Gibbard Manipulation of Schemes That Mix Voting with Chance , 1977 .

[10]  Allan Gibbard,et al.  Straightforwardness of Game Forms with Lotteries as Outcomes , 1978 .

[11]  H. Moulin Dominance Solvable Voting Schemes , 1979 .

[12]  Hervé Moulin,et al.  IMPLEMENTING EFFICIENT, ANONYMOUS AND NEUTRAL SOCIAL CHOICE FUNCTIONS , 1980 .

[13]  Hervé Moulin,et al.  Implementing just and efficient decision-making , 1981 .

[14]  E. Maskin The Theory of Implementation in Nash Equilibrium: A Survey , 1983 .

[15]  H. Moulin The strategy of social choice , 1983 .

[16]  B. Bernheim Rationalizable Strategic Behavior , 1984 .

[17]  David Pearce Rationalizable Strategic Behavior and the Problem of Perfection , 1984 .

[18]  Hitoshi Matsushima A new approach to the implementation problem , 1988 .

[19]  John. Moore,et al.  Subgame Perfect Implementation , 1988 .

[20]  O. Hart,et al.  Incomplete Contracts and Renegotiation , 1988 .

[21]  Andrew Postlewaite,et al.  Feasible and Continuous Implementation , 1989 .

[22]  Dilip Abreu,et al.  Subgame perfect implementation: A necessary and almost sufficient condition , 1990 .

[23]  Arunava Sen,et al.  VIRTUAL IMPLEMENTATION IN NASH EQUILIBRIUM , 1991 .

[24]  Sanjay Srivastava,et al.  Implementation via backward induction , 1992 .

[25]  Robert W. Rosenthal,et al.  A NOTE ON ABREU-MATSUSHIMA MECHANISMS , 1992 .

[26]  Vladimir Danilov,et al.  Implementation via Nash Equilibria , 1992 .

[27]  J. Laffont,et al.  Implementation, Contracts, and Renegotiation in Environments With Complete Information , 1992 .