Strategy-Proof Risk Sharing for Uncertainty Averse Preferences
We consider a model of state-contingent goods allocation. Each agent has a set of beliefs, or priors, and evaluates an allocation according to the minimum expected utility over the set of ...
Strategy-Proof Risk Sharing for Uncertainty Averse Preferences
We consider a model of state-contingent goods allocation. Each agent has a set of beliefs, or priors, and evaluates an allocation according to the minimum expected utility over the set of priors. Preferences of this type are known as maximin expected utility preferences and their axiomatic foundation is offered by Gilboa and Schmeidler(1989). Our main objective is to study (allocation) rules satisfying the three well-known axioms, efficiency, individual rationality, and strategy-proofness (Gibbard1973; Satterthwaite1975). Numerous authors have shown that the three axioms are incompatible in exchange economies: see Hurwicz(1972), Dasgupta et al.(1979), Zhou(1991), Schummer(1997), and Serizawa(2002), Serizawa and Weymark(2003), Ju(2003, 2005), etc.
Of particular relevance to our work is Ju(2005). This paper considers the model of state-contingent goods allocation where agents have the common prior and expected utility preferences. The main results in Ju(2005) show that when aggregate certainty (constant aggregate endowments across states) prevails, the three axioms are compatible; otherwise, they are incompatible. However, the family of rules satisfying the three axioms in the aggregate certainty case is extremely restricted; they are fixed price selections from Walrasian equilibrium allocations. We show that in the case of maximin expected utility preferences, the family is larger due to the well-known indeterminacy of equilibria. We characterize this family imposing the three axioms. It consists of both Walrasian and non-Walrasian rules. When aggregate uncertainty holds, we find results that give mixed messages, yet, closer to the negative side. When there are two states and two agents with the same set of non-degenerate priors, only dictatorial rules are efficient and strategy-proof. But when there is a degenerate prior, we provide a characterization result similar to the aggregate certainty case.
Nash Implementation:
Extending the formulation of market institution in general equilibrium analysis, an economic institution is formulated by a system ``opportunitiesthe institution offers to its members. An opportunity system is a non-empty set of profiles of individual opportunity sets (subsets of alternatives). An alternative is an opportunity equilibrium under a system if there is an opportunity profile in the system such that the alternative maximizes each agent's well-being over his opportunity set in the profile. Examples are Walrasian equilibrium, Lindahl equilibrium, valuation equilibrium by Mas-Colell(1980), equal opportunity equilibrium by Thomson(1994), etc. The main results show that this formulation of economic institutions by opportunity systems is closely related with the alternative formulation by game forms in Implementation Theory and that in some well-known environments, they are equivalent. A useful by-product is a decomposition of implementation procedure into two steps: the first is to identify an opportunity system supporting a rule, and the second is to use this system to design a game form implementing the rule. Thus, informational efficiency in the opportunity system, if any, can be embedded in the game form implementing the rule.