Efficiency and Strategy-Proofness in Object Assignment Problems with Multi Demand Preferences
25 Pages Posted: 18 Aug 2015
Date Written: August 17, 2015
Abstract
Consider the problem of allocating objects to agents and how much they should pay. Each agent has a preference relation over pairs of a set of objects and a payment. Preferences are not necessarily quasi-linear. Non-quasi-linear preferences describe environments where payments influence agents' abilities to utilize objects. This paper is to investigate the possibility of designing efficient and strategy-proof rules in such environments. A preference relation is single demand if an agent wishes to receive at most one object; it is multi demand if whenever an agent receives one object, an additional object makes him better off. We show that if a domain contains all the single demand preferences and at least one multi demand preference relation, and there are more agents than objects, then no rule satisfies efficiency, strategy-proofness, individual rationality, and no subsidy for losers on the domain.
Keywords: strategy-proofness, efficiency, multi demand preferences, single demand preferences, non-quasi-linear preferences, minimum price Walrasian rule
JEL Classification: D44, D71, D61, D82
Suggested Citation: Suggested Citation