Abstract.
We study the possibility of strategy-proof and efficient mechanisms in pure exchange economies. In his remarkable paper, Zhou (1991) establishes an elegant impossibility result: there is no strategy-proof, efficient, and non-dictatorial mechanism in the two-agent case. He conjectures that there is no strategy-proof, efficient, and “non-inversely-dictatorial” mechanism in the case of three or more agents. However, we discover some counterexamples to his conjecture in the case of four or more agents. We present a new interesting open question: Is there any strategy-proof, efficient, and “non-alternately-dictatorial” mechanism?
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Received: 17 October 2000/Accepted: 20 April 2001
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Kato, M., Ohseto, S. Toward general impossibility theorems in pure exchange economies. Soc Choice Welfare 19, 659–664 (2002). https://doi.org/10.1007/s003550100143
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s003550100143