IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/spr/sochwe/v47y2016i3d10.1007_s00355-016-0987-7.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Non-bossiness

Author

Listed:
  • William Thomson

Abstract

An allocation rule is “non-bossy” if whenever a change in an agent’s preferences does not bring about a change in his assignment, then it does not bring about a change in anybody’s assignment. We discuss the multiple interpretations that have been proposed for this property. We question their validity, arguing that in most cases, non-bossiness either says too little or that it says too much. We also make a case against the property. We propose as its main justification the technical help that it often provides in structuring classes of rules, making characterizations more manageable.

Suggested Citation

  • William Thomson, 2016. "Non-bossiness," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 47(3), pages 665-696, October.
    • Handle: RePEc:spr:sochwe:v:47:y:2016:i:3:d:10.1007_s00355-016-0987-7
    DOI: 10.1007/s00355-016-0987-7
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s00355-016-0987-7
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1007/s00355-016-0987-7?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

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

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Ehlers, Lars, 2014. "Top trading with fixed tie-breaking in markets with indivisible goods," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 151(C), pages 64-87.
    2. Mustafa Oguz Afacan, 2012. "On The "Group Non-bossiness" Property," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 32(2), pages 1571-1575.
    3. Toyotaka Sakai & Takuma Wakayama, 2008. "Uniform, Equal Division, and Other Envy-free Rules between the Two," ISER Discussion Paper 0723, Institute of Social and Economic Research, Osaka University.
    4. Alcalde, Jose, 1996. "Implementation of Stable Solutions to Marriage Problems," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 69(1), pages 240-254, April.
    5. Itai Ashlagi & Shigehiro Serizawa, 2012. "Characterizing Vickrey allocation rule by anonymity," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 38(3), pages 531-542, March.
    6. Hervé Moulin, 1987. "The Pure Compensation Problem: Egalitarianism Versus Laissez-Fairism," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 102(4), pages 769-783.
    7. Sprumont, Yves, 1991. "The Division Problem with Single-Peaked Preferences: A Characterization of the Uniform Allocation Rule," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 59(2), pages 509-519, March.
    8. Barberà, Salvador & Berga, Dolors & Moreno, Bernardo, 2010. "Individual versus group strategy-proofness: When do they coincide?," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 145(5), pages 1648-1674, September.
    9. Ju, Biung-Ghi, 2013. "Coalitional manipulation on networks," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 148(2), pages 627-662.
    10. Eric Maskin, 1999. "Nash Equilibrium and Welfare Optimality," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 66(1), pages 23-38.
    11. Jaramillo, Paula & Manjunath, Vikram, 2012. "The difference indifference makes in strategy-proof allocation of objects," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 147(5), pages 1913-1946.
    12. Takuma Wakayama, 2017. "Bribe-proofness for single-peaked preferences: characterizations and maximality-of-domains results," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 49(2), pages 357-385, August.
    13. Takumi Kongo, 2013. "On non-bossy matching rules in two-sided matching problems," International Journal of Economic Theory, The International Society for Economic Theory, vol. 9(4), pages 303-311, December.
    14. William Thomson, 1999. "Welfare-domination under preference-replacement: A survey and open questions," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 16(3), pages 373-394.
    15. Thomson, William, 1993. "The replacement principle in public good economies with single-peaked preferences," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 42(1), pages 31-36.
    16. , & ,, 2015. "Strategy-proofness and efficiency with non-quasi-linear preferences: a characterization of minimum price Walrasian rule," Theoretical Economics, Econometric Society, vol. 10(2), May.
    17. Tsuyoshi Adachi & Takumi Kongo, 2013. "First-price auctions on general preference domains: axiomatic characterizations," Economic Theory Bulletin, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 1(1), pages 93-103, May.
    18. Barbera, Salvador & Jackson, Matthew O, 1995. "Strategy-Proof Exchange," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 63(1), pages 51-87, January.
    19. M. L. BALINSKI & H. P. Young, 1982. "Fair Representation in the European Parliament," Journal of Common Market Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 20(4), pages 361-373, June.
    20. Nagahisa, Ryo-ichi, 1991. "A local independence condition for characterization of Walrasian allocations rule," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 54(1), pages 106-123, June.
    21. Sangkyu Rhee, 2011. "Strategy‐Proof Allocation Of Indivisible Goods Among Couples," The Japanese Economic Review, Japanese Economic Association, vol. 62(2), pages 289-303, June.
    22. Mark A. Satterthwaite & Hugo Sonnenschein, 1981. "Strategy-Proof Allocation Mechanisms at Differentiable Points," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 48(4), pages 587-597.
    23. Yengin, Duygu, 2013. "Population monotonic and strategy-proof mechanisms respecting welfare lower bounds," Journal of Mathematical Economics, Elsevier, vol. 49(5), pages 389-397.
    24. Papai, Szilvia, 2003. "Strategyproof exchange of indivisible goods," Journal of Mathematical Economics, Elsevier, vol. 39(8), pages 931-959, November.
    25. Doğan, Battal & Klaus, Bettina, 2018. "Object allocation via immediate-acceptance: Characterizations and an affirmative action application," Journal of Mathematical Economics, Elsevier, vol. 79(C), pages 140-156.
    26. Tayfun Sönmez & Tobias B. Switzer, 2013. "Matching With (Branch‐of‐Choice) Contracts at the United States Military Academy," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 81(2), pages 451-488, March.
    27. Mizukami, Hideki & Wakayama, Takuma, 2007. "Dominant strategy implementation in economic environments," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 60(2), pages 307-325, August.
    28. Michel Breton & Vera Zaporozhets, 2009. "On the equivalence of coalitional and individual strategy-proofness properties," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 33(2), pages 287-309, August.
    29. Dolors Berga & Bernardo Moreno, 2009. "Strategic requirements with indifference: single-peaked versus single-plateaued preferences," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 32(2), pages 275-298, February.
    30. Elisha A. Pazner & David Schmeidler, 1978. "Egalitarian Equivalent Allocations: A New Concept of Economic Equity," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 92(4), pages 671-687.
    31. Alcalde-Unzu, Jorge & Molis, Elena, 2011. "Exchange of indivisible goods and indifferences: The Top Trading Absorbing Sets mechanisms," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 73(1), pages 1-16, September.
    32. Youngsub Chun, 2006. "The Separability Principle in Economies with Single-Peaked Preferences," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 26(2), pages 239-253, April.
    33. Shuhei Morimoto & Shigehiro Serizawa & Stephen Ching, 2013. "A characterization of the uniform rule with several commodities and agents," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 40(3), pages 871-911, March.
    34. Barbera, Salvador & Jackson, Matthew O. & Neme, Alejandro, 1997. "Strategy-Proof Allotment Rules," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 18(1), pages 1-21, January.
    35. Duygu Yengin, 2012. "Egalitarian-equivalent Groves mechanisms in the allocation of heterogenous objects," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 38(1), pages 137-160, January.
    36. Hashimoto, Kazuhiko & Saitoh, Hiroki, 2015. "Strategy-proof cost sharing under increasing returns: Improvement of the supremal welfare loss," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 89(C), pages 101-121.
    37. Duygu Yengin, 2013. "Identical Preferences Lower Bound for Allocation of Heterogenous Tasks and NIMBY Problems," Journal of Public Economic Theory, Association for Public Economic Theory, vol. 15(4), pages 580-601, August.
    38. Shigehiro Serizawa, 1999. "Strategy-Proof and Symmetric Social Choice Functions for Public Good Economies," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 67(1), pages 121-146, January.
    39. Nash, John, 1950. "The Bargaining Problem," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 18(2), pages 155-162, April.
    40. Vikram Manjunath, 2014. "Efficient and strategy-proof social choice when preferences are single-dipped," International Journal of Game Theory, Springer;Game Theory Society, vol. 43(3), pages 579-597, August.
    41. K. J. Arrow & A. K. Sen & K. Suzumura (ed.), 2011. "Handbook of Social Choice and Welfare," Handbook of Social Choice and Welfare, Elsevier, edition 1, volume 2, number 2.
    42. Youngsub Chun, 1999. "Equivalence of axioms for bankruptcy problems," International Journal of Game Theory, Springer;Game Theory Society, vol. 28(4), pages 511-520.
    43. Shapley, Lloyd & Scarf, Herbert, 1974. "On cores and indivisibility," Journal of Mathematical Economics, Elsevier, vol. 1(1), pages 23-37, March.
    44. Toyotaka Sakai, 2008. "Second price auctions on general preference domains: two characterizations," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 37(2), pages 347-356, November.
    45. Salvador Barberà & Dolors Berga & Bernardo Moreno, 2014. "Group strategy-proofness in private good economies without money: matching, division and house allocation," Working Papers 773, Barcelona School of Economics.
    46. Salvador Barberà & Dolors Berga & Bernardo Moreno, 2016. "Group Strategy-Proofness in Private Good Economies," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 106(4), pages 1073-1099, April.
    47. Youngsub Chun, 1999. "Equivalence of Axioms for Bankruptcy Problems," Working Paper Series no1, Institute of Economic Research, Seoul National University.
    48. Atila Abdulkadiroglu & Tayfun Sönmez, 2003. "School Choice: A Mechanism Design Approach," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 93(3), pages 729-747, June.
    49. Schummer, James, 2000. "Manipulation through Bribes," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 91(2), pages 180-198, April.
    50. Bettina Klaus & Olivier Bochet, 2013. "The relation between monotonicity and strategy-proofness," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 40(1), pages 41-63, January.
    51. Mizukami, Hideki & Wakayama, Takuma, 2009. "The relation between non-bossiness and monotonicity," Mathematical Social Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 58(2), pages 256-264, September.
    52. Ritz, Zvi, 1983. "Restricted domains, arrow-social welfare functions and noncorruptible and non-manipulable social choice correspondences: The case of private alternatives," Mathematical Social Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 4(2), pages 155-179, April.
    53. Mukherjee, Conan, 2015. "On Axioms Underlying Use of Reserve Price," Working Papers 2015:7, Lund University, Department of Economics, revised 14 Apr 2015.
    54. Murat Atlamaz & Duygu Yengin, 2008. "Fair Groves mechanisms," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 31(4), pages 573-587, December.
    55. Manjunath, Vikram, 2012. "When too little is as good as nothing at all: Rationing a disposable good among satiable people with acceptance thresholds," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 74(2), pages 576-587.
    56. Thomson, William, 2012. "On The Axiomatics Of Resource Allocation: Interpreting The Consistency Principle," Economics and Philosophy, Cambridge University Press, vol. 28(3), pages 385-421, November.
    57. Toyotaka Sakai, 2013. "An equity characterization of second price auctions when preferences may not be quasilinear," Review of Economic Design, Springer;Society for Economic Design, vol. 17(1), pages 17-26, March.
    58. Kojima, Fuhito, 2010. "Impossibility of stable and nonbossy matching mechanisms," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 107(1), pages 69-70, April.
    59. Mutuswami, Suresh, 2005. "Strategyproofness, Non-Bossiness and Group Strategyproofness in a cost sharing model," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 89(1), pages 83-88, October.
    60. Debasis Mishra & Abdul Quadir, 2014. "Non-bossy single object auctions," Economic Theory Bulletin, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 2(1), pages 93-110, April.
    61. Gibbard, Allan, 1973. "Manipulation of Voting Schemes: A General Result," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 41(4), pages 587-601, July.
    62. Harless, Patrick, 2014. "A School Choice Compromise: Between Immediate and Deferred Acceptance," MPRA Paper 61417, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. Raghavan, Madhav, 2020. "Influence in private-goods allocation," Journal of Mathematical Economics, Elsevier, vol. 89(C), pages 14-28.
    2. Salvador Barberà & Dolors Berga & Bernardo Moreno, 2016. "Group Strategy-Proofness in Private Good Economies," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 106(4), pages 1073-1099, April.
    3. Hagen, Martin, 2023. "Collusion-proof mechanisms for multi-unit procurement," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 138(C), pages 281-298.
    4. Thomson, William, 2011. "Chapter Twenty-One - Fair Allocation Rules," Handbook of Social Choice and Welfare, in: K. J. Arrow & A. K. Sen & K. Suzumura (ed.), Handbook of Social Choice and Welfare, edition 1, volume 2, chapter 21, pages 393-506, Elsevier.
    5. Dolors Berga & Bernardo Moreno, 2009. "Strategic requirements with indifference: single-peaked versus single-plateaued preferences," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 32(2), pages 275-298, February.
    6. Madhav Raghavan, 2018. "Influence in Private-Good Economies," Cahiers de Recherches Economiques du Département d'économie 18.05, Université de Lausanne, Faculté des HEC, Département d’économie.
    7. Salvador Barberà, 2010. "Strategy-proof social choice," UFAE and IAE Working Papers 828.10, Unitat de Fonaments de l'Anàlisi Econòmica (UAB) and Institut d'Anàlisi Econòmica (CSIC).
    8. William Thomson, 2018. "On the terminology of economic design: a critical assessment and some proposals," Review of Economic Design, Springer;Society for Economic Design, vol. 22(1), pages 67-99, June.
    9. Erlanson, Albin & Szwagrzak, Karol, 2013. "Strategy-Proof Package Assignment," Working Papers 2013:43, Lund University, Department of Economics.
    10. Salvador Barberà & Dolors Berga & Bernardo Moreno, 2014. "Group strategy-proofness in private good economies without money: matching, division and house allocation," Working Papers 773, Barcelona School of Economics.
    11. Barberà, Salvador & Berga, Dolors & Moreno, Bernardo, 2012. "Two necessary conditions for strategy-proofness: On what domains are they also sufficient?," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 75(2), pages 490-509.
    12. Duygu Yengin, 2017. "No-envy and egalitarian-equivalence under multi-object-demand for heterogeneous objects," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 48(1), pages 81-108, January.
    13. Mackenzie, Andrew & Zhou, Yu, 2022. "Menu mechanisms," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 204(C).
    14. Shuhei Morimoto & Shigehiro Serizawa & Stephen Ching, 2013. "A characterization of the uniform rule with several commodities and agents," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 40(3), pages 871-911, March.
    15. Bochet, Olivier & Tumennasan, Norovsambuu, 2020. "Dominance of truthtelling and the lattice structure of Nash equilibria," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 185(C).
    16. Mackenzie, Andrew & Trudeau, Christian, 2023. "On Groves mechanisms for costly inclusion," Theoretical Economics, Econometric Society, vol. 18(3), July.
    17. Atila Abdulkadiroglu & Tommy Andersson, 2022. "School Choice," NBER Working Papers 29822, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    18. Tsuyoshi Adachi & Takumi Kongo, 2013. "First-price auctions on general preference domains: axiomatic characterizations," Economic Theory Bulletin, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 1(1), pages 93-103, May.
    19. Mizukami, Hideki & Saijo, Tatsuyoshi & Wakayama, Takuma, 2003. "Strategy-Proof Sharing," Working Papers 1170, California Institute of Technology, Division of the Humanities and Social Sciences.
    20. Erlanson, Albin & Flores-Szwagrzak, Karol, 2015. "Strategy-proof assignment of multiple resources," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 159(PA), pages 137-162.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • C79 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Game Theory and Bargaining Theory - - - Other
    • D63 - Microeconomics - - Welfare Economics - - - Equity, Justice, Inequality, and Other Normative Criteria and Measurement
    • D74 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - Conflict; Conflict Resolution; Alliances; Revolutions

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    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:spr:sochwe:v:47:y:2016:i:3:d:10.1007_s00355-016-0987-7. 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: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.springer.com .

    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.