Preface
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 29 May 2010
Summary
This text develops a calculus-based, first-order approach to the construction of economic mechanisms. A mechanism here is informationally decentralized in the sense that it operates in an environment in which relevant information is dispersed among the participating agents. A mechanism thus requires a “language,” or message space, that defines how the agents may communicate with one another. This text focuses on the task of constructing the alternative message spaces that a group of agents may use as languages for communicating with one another and thereby achieve a common objective. The relationship between the language that a group of agents may use and the ends that they may accomplish was identified in Hurwicz (1960); the model of a mechanism that is the main object of study in this text originated in this paper and in the long-term collaboration of Leonid Hurwicz with Stanley Reiter. Whereas constructing the message space is but one aspect of the design of a mechanism, it is fundamental in the sense that other aspects (such as dynamic stability and incentives) revolve around the choice of messages with which agents may communicate.
It is assumed here that the sets in the model of a mechanism are subsets of Euclidean space. Appropriate regularity assumptions are imposed on mappings and correspondences so that it is possible to identify necessary and sufficient differential conditions for the design of an economic mechanism.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Communication in Mechanism DesignA Differential Approach, pp. xi - xiiPublisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2008