Robust virtual implementation: Toward a reinterpretation of the Wilson doctrine

• Main Authors: ARTEMOV, Georgy, KUNIMOTO, Takashi, SERRANO, Roberto
• Format: text
• Language: English
• Published: Institutional Knowledge at Singapore Management University 2013
• Subjects: Wilson doctrine; Mechanism; design; Robust virtual implementation; Δ-rationalizability; Incentive compatibility; Measurability; Type diversity; Economic Theory
• Online Access: https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/soe_research/2002; https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/context/soe_research/article/3001/viewcontent/RobustVirtualImplementation_2012_JET.pdf
• Institution: Singapore Management University

We study a mechanism design problem where arbitrary restrictions are placed on the sets of first-order beliefs of agents. Calling these restrictions Δ, we use Δ-rationalizability (Battigalli and Siniscalchi, 2003, [5]) as our solution concept, and require that a mechanism virtually implement a socially desirable outcome. We obtain two necessary conditions, Δ-incentive compatibility and Δ-measurability and show that the latter is satisfied as long as a particular zero-measure set of first-order beliefs is ruled out. In environments allowing small transfers of utility among agents, these two conditions are also sufficient.