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Strategy-proof
In game theory, an asymmetric game where players have private information is said to be strategy-proof or strategyproof (SP) if it is a weakly-dominant strategy for every player to reveal his/her private information, i.e. given no information about what the others do, you fare best or at least not worse by being truthful. SP is also called truthful or dominant-strategy-incentive-compatible (DSIC), to distinguish it from other kinds of incentive compatibility. An SP game is not always immune to collusion, but its robust variants are; with group strategyproofness no group of people can collude to misreport their preferences in a way that makes every member better off, and with strong group strategyproofness no group of people can collude to misreport their preferences in a way that makes at least one member of the group better off without making any of the remaining members worse off. Examples Typical examples of SP mechanisms are majority voting between two alternatives, second- ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Social Choice
Social choice theory or social choice is a theoretical framework for analysis of combining individual opinions, preferences, interests, or welfares to reach a ''collective decision'' or ''social welfare'' in some sense.Amartya Sen (2008). "Social Choice,". ''The New Palgrave Dictionary of Economics'', 2nd EditionAbstract & TOC./ref> Whereas choice theory is concerned with individuals making choices based on their preferences, social choice theory is concerned with how to translate the preferences of individuals into the preferences of a group. A non-theoretical example of a collective decision is enacting a law or set of laws under a constitution. Another example is voting, where individual preferences over candidates are collected to elect a person that best represents the group's preferences. Social choice blends elements of welfare economics and public choice theory. It is methodologically individualistic, in that it aggregates preferences and behaviors of individual member ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Game Theory
Game theory is the study of mathematical models of strategic interactions among rational agents. Myerson, Roger B. (1991). ''Game Theory: Analysis of Conflict,'' Harvard University Press, p.&nbs1 Chapter-preview links, ppvii–xi It has applications in all fields of social science, as well as in logic, systems science and computer science. Originally, it addressed two-person zero-sum games, in which each participant's gains or losses are exactly balanced by those of other participants. In the 21st century, game theory applies to a wide range of behavioral relations; it is now an umbrella term for the science of logical decision making in humans, animals, as well as computers. Modern game theory began with the idea of mixed-strategy equilibria in two-person zero-sum game and its proof by John von Neumann. Von Neumann's original proof used the Brouwer fixed-point theorem on continuous mappings into compact convex sets, which became a standard method in game theory and mathema ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Transmission (telecommunications)
In telecommunications, transmission is the process of sending or propagating an analog or digital signal via a medium that is wired, wireless, or fiber-optic. Transmission technologies typically refer to physical layer protocol duties such as modulation, demodulation, line coding, equalization, error control, bit synchronization and multiplexing, but it may also involve higher-layer protocol duties, for example, digitizing an analog signal, and data compression. Transmission of a digital message, or of a digitized analog signal, is known as data transmission. Examples of transmission are the sending of signals with limited duration, for example, a block or packet of data, a phone call, or an email. See also *Radio transmitter In electronics and telecommunications, a radio transmitter or just transmitter is an electronic device which produces radio waves with an antenna. The transmitter itself generates a radio frequency alternating current, which is applied to the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Individual Rationality
Rational choice theory refers to a set of guidelines that help understand economic and social behaviour. The theory originated in the eighteenth century and can be traced back to political economist and philosopher, Adam Smith. The theory postulates that an individual will perform a cost-benefit analysis to determine whether an option is right for them.Gary Browning, Abigail Halcli, Frank Webster (2000). ''Understanding Contemporary Society: Theories of the Present'', London: SAGE Publications. It also suggests that an individual's self-driven rational actions will help better the overall economy. Rational choice theory looks at three concepts: rational actors, self interest and the invisible hand. Rationality can be used as an assumption for the behaviour of individuals in a wide range of contexts outside of economics. It is also used in political science, sociology, and philosophy. Overview The basic premise of rational choice theory is that the decisions made by individual ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Incentive Compatibility
A mechanism is called incentive-compatible (IC) if every participant can achieve the best outcome to themselves just by acting according to their true preferences. There are several different degrees of incentive-compatibility: * The stronger degree is dominant-strategy incentive-compatibility (DSIC). It means that truth-telling is a weakly-dominant strategy, i.e. you fare best or at least not worse by being truthful, regardless of what the others do. In a DSIC mechanism, strategic considerations cannot help any agent achieve better outcomes than the truth; hence, such mechanisms are also called strategyproof or truthful. (See Strategyproofness) * A weaker degree is Bayesian-Nash incentive-compatibility (BNIC). It means that there is a Bayesian Nash equilibrium in which all participants reveal their true preferences. I.e, ''if'' all the others act truthfully, ''then'' it is also best or at least not worse for you to be truthful. Every DSIC mechanism is also BNIC, but a BNIC me ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Consensus Estimate
Consensus estimate is a technique for designing truthful mechanisms in a prior-free mechanism design setting. The technique was introduced for digital goods auctions and later extended to more general settings. Suppose there is a digital good that we want to sell to a group of buyers with unknown valuations. We want to determine the price that will bring us maximum profit. Suppose we have a function that, given the valuations of the buyers, tells us the maximum profit that we can make. We can use it in the following way: # Ask the buyers to tell their valuations. # Calculate R_ - the maximum profit possible given the valuations. # Calculate a price that guarantees that we get a profit of R_. Step 3 can be attained by a profit extraction mechanism, which is a truthful mechanism. However, in general the mechanism is not truthful, since the buyers can try to influence R_ by bidding strategically. To solve this problem, we can replace the exact R_ with an approximation - R_ - that, with ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lexicographic Dominance
Lexicographic dominance is a total order between random variables. It is a form of stochastic ordering. It is defined as follows. Random variable A has lexicographic dominance over random variable B (denoted A \succ_ B) if one of the following holds: * A has a higher probability than B of receiving the best outcome. * A and B have an equal probability of receiving the best outcome, but A has a higher probability of receiving the 2nd-best outcome. * A and B have an equal probability of receiving the best and 2nd-best outcomes, but A has a higher probability of receiving the 3rd-best outcome. In other words: let ''k'' be the first index for which the probability of receiving the k-th best outcome is different for A and B. Then this probability should be higher for A. Variants Upward lexicographic dominance is defined as follows. Random variable A has upward lexicographic dominance over random variable B (denoted A \succ_ B) if one of the following holds: * A has a ''lower'' probab ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
First-order Stochastic Dominance
Stochastic dominance is a partial order between random variables. It is a form of stochastic ordering. The concept arises in decision theory and decision analysis in situations where one gamble (a probability distribution over possible outcomes, also known as prospects) can be ranked as superior to another gamble for a broad class of decision-makers. It is based on shared preferences regarding sets of possible outcomes and their associated probabilities. Only limited knowledge of preferences is required for determining dominance. Risk aversion is a factor only in second order stochastic dominance. Stochastic dominance does not give a total order, but rather only a partial order: for some pairs of gambles, neither one stochastically dominates the other, since different members of the broad class of decision-makers will differ regarding which gamble is preferable without them generally being considered to be equally attractive. Throughout the article, \rho, \nu stand for probability ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Monotonicity (mechanism Design)
In mechanism design, monotonicity is a property of a social choice function. It is a necessary condition for being able to implement the function using a strategyproof mechanism. Its verbal description is: In other words: Notation There is a set X of possible outcomes. There are n agents which have different valuations for each outcome. The valuation of agent i is represented as a function: v_i : X \longrightarrow R_+ which expresses the value it assigns to each alternative. The vector of all value-functions is denoted by v. For every agent i, the vector of all value-functions of the ''other'' agents is denoted by v_. So v \equiv (v_i,v_). A social choice function is a function that takes as input the value-vector v and returns an outcome x\in X. It is denoted by \text(v) or \text(v_i,v_). In mechanisms without money A social choice function satisfies the strong monotonicity property (SMON) if for every agent i and every v_i,v_i',v_, if: x = \text(v_i, v_) x' = \text ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Implementability (mechanism Design)
In mechanism design, implementability is a property of a social choice function. It means that there is an incentive-compatible mechanism that attains ("implements") this function. There are several degrees of implementability, corresponding to the different degrees of incentive-compatibility, e.g: * A function is dominant-strategy implementable if it is attainable by a mechanism which is dominant-strategy-incentive-compatible (also called strategyproof In game theory, an asymmetric game where players have private information is said to be strategy-proof or strategyproof (SP) if it is a weakly-dominant strategy for every player to reveal his/her private information, i.e. given no information about ...). * A function is Bayesian-Nash implementable if it is attainable by a mechanism which is Bayesian-Nash-incentive-compatible. See for a recent reference. In some textbooks, the entire field of mechanism design is called Implementation theory.Martin J. Osborne & Ariel Rubinstein: A Cour ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Quasilinear Utility
In economics and consumer theory, quasilinear utility functions are linear in one argument, generally the numeraire. Quasilinear preferences can be represented by the utility function u(x_1, x_2, \ldots, x_n) = x_1 + \theta (x_2, \ldots, x_n) where \theta is strictly concave. A useful property of the quasilinear utility function is that the Marshallian/Walrasian demand for x_2, \ldots, x_n does not depend on wealth and is thus not subject to a wealth effect; The absence of a wealth effect simplifies analysis and makes quasilinear utility functions a common choice for modelling. Furthermore, when utility is quasilinear, compensating variation (CV), equivalent variation (EV), and consumer surplus are algebraically equivalent. In mechanism design, quasilinear utility ensures that agents can compensate each other with side payments. Definition in terms of preferences A preference relation \succsim is quasilinear with respect to commodity 1 (called, in this case, the ''numeraire'' ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
