Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/197177 
Year of Publication: 
2018
Citation: 
[Journal:] Theoretical Economics [ISSN:] 1555-7561 [Volume:] 13 [Issue:] 3 [Publisher:] The Econometric Society [Place:] New Haven, CT [Year:] 2018 [Pages:] 1275-1318
Publisher: 
The Econometric Society, New Haven, CT
Abstract: 
When is a mechanism designer justified in only asking for ordinal information about preferences? Simple examples show that, even if the planner's goal (expressed by a social choice correspondence, or SCC) depends only on ordinal information, eliciting cardinal information may help with incentives. However, if agents may be uncertain about their own cardinal preferences, then a strong robustness requirement can justify the focus on ordinal mechanisms. Specifically, when agents' preferences over pure outcomes are strict, if a planner is able to implement an SCC (in ex-post equilibrium) using a mechanism that is robust to interdependence of arbitrary form in cardinal preferences, then there must exist such a mechanism that elicits only ordinal preferences. The strictness assumption can be dropped if we further allow the possibility of non-expected-utility preferences.
Subjects: 
Cardinal extension
ex-post implementation
interdependence
ordinal mechanism
robust mechanism design
JEL: 
D81
D82
Persistent Identifier of the first edition: 
Creative Commons License: 
cc-by-nc Logo
Document Type: 
Article

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