Theoretical Economics
Journal of the Econometric Society
Edited by: Federico Echenique • ISSN (e): 1555-7561 • ISSN (print): 1933-6837
Edited by: Federico Echenique • ISSN (e): 1555-7561 • ISSN (print): 1933-6837
Theoretical Economics: Jul, 2021, Volume 16, Issue 3
https://doi.org/10.3982/TE4343
p. 777-797
Aurelien Baillon, Yan Xu
This paper introduces two simple betting mechanisms, Top-Flop and Threshold betting, to elicit unverifiable information from crowds. Agents are offered bets on the rating of an item about which they received a private signal versus that of a random item. We characterize conditions for the chosen bet to reveal the agents' private signal even if the underlying ratings are biased. We further provide micro-economic foundations of the ratings, which are endogenously determined by the actions of other agents in a game setting. Our mechanisms relax standard assumptions of the literature, such as common prior, and homogeneous and risk neutral agents.