IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/jetheo/v144y2009i5p1895-1920.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The communication cost of selfishness

Author

Listed:
  • Fadel, Ronald
  • Segal, Ilya

Abstract

We consider how many bits need to be exchanged to implement a given decision rule when the mechanism must be ex post or Bayesian incentive compatible. For ex post incentive compatibility, the communication protocol must reveal enough information to calculate monetary transfers to the agents to motivate them to be truthful (agents' payoffs are assumed to be quasilinear in such transfers). For Bayesian incentive compatibility, the protocol may need to hide some information from the agents to prevent deviations contingent on the information. In both settings with selfish agents, the communication cost can be higher than in the case in which the agents are honest and can be relied upon to report truthfully. The increase is the "communication cost of selfishness." We provide an exponential upper bound on the increase. We show that the bound is tight in the Bayesian setting, but we do not know this in the ex post setting. We describe some cases where the communication cost of selfishness proves to be very low.

Suggested Citation

  • Fadel, Ronald & Segal, Ilya, 2009. "The communication cost of selfishness," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 144(5), pages 1895-1920, September.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:jetheo:v:144:y:2009:i:5:p:1895-1920
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0022-0531(09)00023-4
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Dilip Mookherjee, 2006. "Decentralization, Hierarchies, and Incentives: A Mechanism Design Perspective," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 44(2), pages 367-390, June.
    2. Drew Fudenberg & Jean Tirole, 1991. "Game Theory," MIT Press Books, The MIT Press, edition 1, volume 1, number 0262061414, April.
    3. Reichelstein, Stefan, 1984. "Incentive compatibility and informational requirements," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 34(1), pages 32-51, October.
    4. Françoise Forges, 1990. "Equilibria with Communication in a Job Market Example," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 105(2), pages 375-398.
    5. Sushil Bikhchandani & Shurojit Chatterji & Ron Lavi & Ahuva Mu'alem & Noam Nisan & Arunava Sen, 2006. "Weak Monotonicity Characterizes Deterministic Dominant-Strategy Implementation," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 74(4), pages 1109-1132, July.
    6. Mas-Colell, Andreu & Whinston, Michael D. & Green, Jerry R., 1995. "Microeconomic Theory," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780195102680.
    7. Elena Grigorieva & P. Herings & Rudolf Müller & Dries Vermeulen, 2007. "The private value single item bisection auction," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 30(1), pages 107-118, January.
    8. Nisan, Noam & Segal, Ilya, 2006. "The communication requirements of efficient allocations and supporting prices," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 129(1), pages 192-224, July.
    9. Melumad, Nahum & Mookherjee, Dilip & Reichelstein, Stefan, 1992. "A theory of responsibility centers," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 15(4), pages 445-484, December.
    10. Cremer, Jacques & McLean, Richard P, 1988. "Full Extraction of the Surplus in Bayesian and Dominant Strategy Auctions," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 56(6), pages 1247-1257, November.
    11. Segal, Ilya, 2007. "The communication requirements of social choice rules and supporting budget sets," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 136(1), pages 341-378, September.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Aviad Rubinstein & Raghuvansh R. Saxena & Clayton Thomas & S. Mathew Weinberg & Junyao Zhao, 2020. "Exponential Communication Separations between Notions of Selfishness," Papers 2012.14898, arXiv.org, revised Jun 2021.
    2. Mackenzie, Andrew & Zhou, Yu, 2022. "Menu mechanisms," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 204(C).
    3. Gorkem Celik, 2015. "Implementation by Gradual Revelation," RAND Journal of Economics, RAND Corporation, vol. 46(2), pages 271-296, June.
    4. Augenblick, Ned & Bodoh-Creed, Aaron, 2018. "To reveal or not to reveal: Privacy preferences and economic frictions," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 110(C), pages 318-329.
    5. Ryuji Sano, 2021. "Dynamic communication mechanism design," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 57(1), pages 163-180, July.
    6. Grigorieva, Elena & Herings, P. Jean-Jacques & Müller, Rudolf & Vermeulen, Dries, 2011. "Inefficiency of equilibria in digital mechanisms with continuous valuations," Journal of Mathematical Economics, Elsevier, vol. 47(4-5), pages 541-544.
    7. Babaioff, Moshe & Blumrosen, Liad & Schapira, Michael, 2013. "The communication burden of payment determination," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 77(1), pages 153-167.
    8. Ramesh Johari & John N. Tsitsiklis, 2009. "Efficiency of Scalar-Parameterized Mechanisms," Operations Research, INFORMS, vol. 57(4), pages 823-839, August.
    9. Kos, Nenad, 2014. "Asking questions," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 87(C), pages 642-650.
    10. Kos, Nenad, 2012. "Communication and efficiency in auctions," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 75(1), pages 233-249.
    11. Blumrosen, Liad & Feldman, Michal, 2013. "Mechanism design with a restricted action space," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 82(C), pages 424-443.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Babaioff, Moshe & Blumrosen, Liad & Schapira, Michael, 2013. "The communication burden of payment determination," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 77(1), pages 153-167.
    2. Stefan Ambec & Michel Poitevin, 2016. "Decision-making in organizations: when to delegate and whom to delegate," Review of Economic Design, Springer;Society for Economic Design, vol. 20(2), pages 115-143, June.
    3. , & ,, 2013. "Implementation of communication equilibria by correlated cheap talk: The two-player case," Theoretical Economics, Econometric Society, vol. 8(1), January.
    4. Migrow, Dimitri, 2021. "Designing communication hierarchies," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 198(C).
    5. Hagedorn, Marcus, 2009. "The value of information for auctioneers," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 144(5), pages 2197-2208, September.
    6. Mu'alem, Ahuva & Schapira, Michael, 2018. "Setting lower bounds on truthfulness," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 110(C), pages 174-193.
    7. Timothy Van Zandt, 2008. "The Interplay Between Incentives and Communication Complexity in Mechanism Design," 2008 Meeting Papers 480, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    8. Alexander Teytelboym & Shengwu Li & Scott Duke Kominers & Mohammad Akbarpour & Piotr Dworczak, 2021. "Discovering Auctions: Contributions of Paul Milgrom and Robert Wilson," Scandinavian Journal of Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 123(3), pages 709-750, July.
    9. Menicucci, Domenico, 2006. "Full surplus extraction by a risk averse seller in correlated environments," Mathematical Social Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 51(3), pages 280-300, May.
    10. Segal, Ilya, 2007. "The communication requirements of social choice rules and supporting budget sets," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 136(1), pages 341-378, September.
    11. Felix Bierbrauer & Martin Hellwig, 2011. "Mechanism Design and Voting for Public-Good Provision," Discussion Paper Series of the Max Planck Institute for Research on Collective Goods 2011_31, Max Planck Institute for Research on Collective Goods.
    12. Felix J. Bierbrauer & Martin F. Hellwig, 2015. "Public-Good Provision in Large Economies," Discussion Paper Series of the Max Planck Institute for Research on Collective Goods 2015_12, Max Planck Institute for Research on Collective Goods.
    13. Janvier D. Nkurunziza, 2005. "Reputation and Credit without Collateral in Africa`s Formal Banking," Economics Series Working Papers WPS/2005-02, University of Oxford, Department of Economics.
    14. William H. Sandholm, 2005. "Negative Externalities and Evolutionary Implementation," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 72(3), pages 885-915.
    15. Elvio Accinelli & Edgar Sánchez Carrera, 2015. "Recursos comunes, conflictos y turismo," Documentos de Trabajo (working papers) 0115, Department of Economics - dECON.
    16. Philippe Jehiel & Laurent Lamy, 2018. "A Mechanism Design Approach to the Tiebout Hypothesis," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 126(2), pages 735-760.
    17. Bose, Subir, 2014. "Monopolistic screening and uninformed buyers," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 36(C), pages 348-353.
    18. Martin Kaae Jensen, 2018. "Distributional Comparative Statics," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 85(1), pages 581-610.
    19. Ran Canetti & Amos Fiat & Yannai A. Gonczarowski, 2023. "Zero-Knowledge Mechanisms," Papers 2302.05590, arXiv.org.
    20. Amir, Rabah & Lazzati, Natalia, 2011. "Network effects, market structure and industry performance," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 146(6), pages 2389-2419.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:jetheo:v:144:y:2009:i:5:p:1895-1920. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/inca/622869 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.