Essays in Mechanism Design

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dc.contributor.advisorMoulin, Herveen_US
dc.creatorYou, Jung Sooken_US
dc.date.accessioned2013-03-08T00:40:15Zen_US
dc.date.available2013-03-08T00:40:15Zen_US
dc.date.issued2011en_US
dc.description.abstractThis thesis addresses problems in the area of mechanism design. In many settings in winch collective decisions are made, individuals' actual preferences are not publicly observable. As a result, individuals should be relied on to reveal this information. We are interested in an important application of mechanism design, which is the construction of desirable procedures for deciding upon resource allocation or task assignment. We make two main contributions. First, we propose a new mechanism for allocating a divisible commodity between a number of buyers efficiently and fairly. Buyers are assumed to behave as price-anticipators rather than as price-takers. The proposed mechanism is as parsimonious as possible, in the sense that it requires participants to report a one-dimensional message (scalar strategy) instead of an entire utility function, as required by Vickrey-Clarke-Groves (VCG) mechanisms. We show that this mechanism yields efficient allocations in Nash equilibria and moreover, that these equilibria are envy-free. Additionally, we present distinct results that this mechanism is the only simple scalar strategy mechanism that both implements efficient Nash equilibria and satisfies the no envy axiom of fairness. The mechanism's Nash equilibria are proven to satisfy the fairness properties of both Ranking and Voluntary Participation. Our second contribution is to develop optimal VCG mechanisms in order to assign identical economic "bads" (for example, costly tasks) to agents. An optimal VCG mechanism minimizes the largest ratio of budget imbalance to efficient surplus over all cost profiles. The optimal non-deficit VCG mechanism achieves asymptotic budget balance, yet the non-deficit requirement is incompatible with reasonable welfare bounds. If we omit the non-deficit requirement, individual rationality greatly changes the behavior of surplus loss and deficit loss. Allowing a slight deficit, the optimal individually rational VCG mechanism becomes asymptotically budget balanced. Such a phenomenon cannot be found in the case of assigning economic "goods."en_US
dc.format.extent149 p.en_US
dc.format.mimetypeapplication/pdfen_US
dc.identifier.callnoTHESIS ECON. 2011 YOUen_US
dc.identifier.citationYou, Jung Sook. "Essays in Mechanism Design." (2011) Diss., Rice University. <a href="https://hdl.handle.net/1911/70506">https://hdl.handle.net/1911/70506</a>.en_US
dc.identifier.digitalYouJen_US
dc.identifier.urihttps://hdl.handle.net/1911/70506en_US
dc.language.isoengen_US
dc.rightsCopyright is held by the author, unless otherwise indicated. Permission to reuse, publish, or reproduce the work beyond the bounds of fair use or other exemptions to copyright law must be obtained from the copyright holder.en_US
dc.subjectSocial sciencesen_US
dc.subjectMechanism designen_US
dc.subjectVCG mechanismen_US
dc.subjectBudget balanceen_US
dc.subjectScalar mechanismen_US
dc.subjectEnvy-freeen_US
dc.subjectEconomic theoryen_US
dc.titleEssays in Mechanism Designen_US
dc.typeThesisen_US
dc.type.materialTexten_US
thesis.degree.departmentEconomicsen_US
thesis.degree.disciplineSocial Sciencesen_US
thesis.degree.grantorRice Universityen_US
thesis.degree.levelDoctoralen_US
thesis.degree.nameDoctor of Philosophyen_US
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