Theoretical Economics

Journal of the Econometric Society

Edited by: Federico Echenique • ISSN (e): 1555-7561 • ISSN (print): 1933-6837

Theoretical Economics: Oct, 2012, Volume 7, Issue 3

Designing stable mechanisms for economic environments

https://doi.org/10.3982/TE898
p. 609-661

Paul J. Healy, Laurent A. Mathevet

We study the design of mechanisms that implement Lindahl or Walrasian allocations and whose Nash equilibria are dynamically stable for a wide class of adaptive dynamics. We argue that supermodularity is not a desirable stability criterion in this mechanism design context, focusing instead on contractive mechanisms. We provide necessary and sufficient conditions for a mechanism to Nash implement Lindahl or Walrasian allocations, show that these conditions are inconsistent with the contraction property when message spaces are one-dimensional, and then show how to use additional dimensions to achieve dynamic stability while gaining budget balance out of equilibrium.


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