Beyond Moulin mechanisms

The only known general technique for designing truthful and approximately budget-balanced cost-sharing mechanisms with good efficiency or computational complexity properties is due to Moulin [1999. Incremental cost sharing: Characterization by coalition strategy-proofness. Soc. Choice Welfare 16 (2), 279–320]. For many fundamental cost-sharing applications, however, Moulin mechanisms provably suffer from poor budget-balance, poor economic efficiency, or both.We propose acyclic mechanisms, a new framework for designing truthful and approximately budget-balanced cost-sharing mechanisms. Acyclic mechanisms strictly generalize Moulin mechanisms and offer three important advantages. First, it is easier to design acyclic mechanisms than Moulin mechanisms: many classical primal-dual algorithms naturally induce a non-Moulin acyclic mechanism with good performance guarantees. Second, for important classes of cost-sharing problems, acyclic mechanisms have exponentially better budget-balance and economic efficiency than Moulin mechanisms. Finally, while Moulin mechanisms have found application primarily in binary demand games, we extend acyclic mechanisms to general demand games, a multi-parameter setting in which each bidder can be allocated one of several levels of service.     

Learning dynamics for mechanism design: An experimental comparison of public goods mechanisms

In a repeated-interaction public goods economy, incomplete information and dynamic behavior may affect the realized outcomes of mechanisms known to be efficient in a complete information one-shot game. An experimental test of five public goods mechanisms indicates that subjects with private information appear to best respond to recent observations. This provides predictions about which mechanisms will generate convergence to their efficient equilibrium allocations. These predictions match the experimental result that globally stable efficient mechanisms realize the highest efficiency in practice. The simplicity of the suggested best response model makes it useful in predicting stability of mechanisms not yet tested.     

基于知识螺旋的企业集群内生创新与影响机制分析

以知识螺旋模型为基础,分析企业集群内生创新机理,包括集群内部个体间的知识扩散、个体内部隐性知识和显性知识的相互作用产生知识创新过程,用以揭示集群创新的本质;进一步探讨了集群内生创新的影响机制,包括知识积累、融合的触发机制和动力机制、知识螺旋再开发的实施机制。     

加工贸易转型升级的机制探讨

加工贸易转型升级的各种影响要素相互联系、传导和作用,共同构成了转型升级的动力机制、学习机制、创新机制和支撑机制。动力机制是加工贸易转型升级的动力来源,加工贸易企业通过学习机制获得各种显性和隐性知识,并利用创新机制把获得的知识转化为自主创新能力,进而实现从OEM向ODM或OBM的转型升级。动力机制和支撑机制是加工贸易转型升级的外在机制,学习机制和创新机制是加工贸易转型升级的内在机制。     

The complexity of resource allocation and price mechanisms under bounded rationality

Summary We develop a framework for designing and evaluating the complexity of mechanisms that allocate resources in a distributed setting to agents or processors with bounded computational ability. We discuss several mechanisms and describe the construction of efficient price based mechanisms, which exploit the decentralized aspects of the problem. These price mechanisms are polynomial in the number of resources, precision of the solution, and the logarithm of the number of agents.We thank Thomas Marschak and a anonymous referee for helpful suggestions. This research was been supported by National Science Foundation Grant IRI-8902813.     

Non-Dummy Agents in Pure Exchange Economies

We introduce a very fundamental and important axiom of the non-dummy. This states that each agent can change the outcome of the mechanism at some preference profile, thus guaranteeing every agent the minimum right to affect the social decision. We study the possibility of strategy-proof, efficient and non-dummy mechanisms in pure exchange economies. We provide two new interesting classes of such mechanisms. The results shed light on the structure of strategy-proof and efficient mechanisms, and should promote a complete characterization of those mechanisms in pure exchange economies with three or more agents.     

It's all about mechanisms – what process-tracing case studies should be tracing

ABSTRACT

Process-tracing (PT) as a distinct case-study methodology involves tracing causal mechanisms that link causes (X) with their effects (i.e. outcomes) (Y). We trace causal mechanisms whereby a cause (or set of causes) produces an outcome to both: (1) make stronger evidence-based inferences about causal relationships because the analysis produces within-case evidence of each step of the causal process (or absence thereof) in between a cause and outcome, and (2) because tracing mechanisms gives us a better understanding of how a cause produces an outcome. Yet, when we look at the methodological literature on PT, there is considerable ambiguity and discord about what causal mechanisms actually are. The result of this ambiguity and discord about what mechanisms are clearly maps onto existing applications of PT, with most PT case studies completely ignoring the underlying theoretical causal processes. In the few PT applications where mechanisms are unpacked, they are typically only developed in a very cursory fashion, with the result that there is considerable ambiguity about what theoretical process the ensuing case study actually is tracing. If we want to claim we are tracing causal mechanisms, the causal processes in between X and Y need to be unpacked theoretically. How can we claim we are tracing a causal ’process’ when we are not told what the process (i.e. mechanism) actually is? To alleviate this problem, the article attempts to develop a clearer definition of causal mechanisms to provide scholars with a framework for theorising mechanisms in a fashion that is amenable to in-depth empirical analysis using PT.     

上市公司董事会监督机制替代效应对绩效影响的实证研究

董事会的监督机制——领导权结构、董事会构成和董事会持股结构——对上市公司绩效影响不是孤立的,不同的监督机制的组合会对上市公司产生不同的绩效影响,同时在一定程度上存在监督机制之间的相互替代。公司绩效依赖于一系列董事会监督机制在维护公司整体利益问题上的效率性,而不是依赖于任何单一的机制。     

Behavioral Mechanism Design

This paper studies the mechanism design problem for the class of Bayesian environments where agents do care for the well‐being of others. For these environments, we fully characterize interim efficient (IE) mechanisms and examine their properties. This set of mechanisms is compelling, since IE mechanisms are the best in the sense that there is no other mechanism which generates unanimous improvement. For public good environments, we show that these mechanisms produce public goods closer to the efficient level of production as the degree of altruism in the preferences increases. For private good environments, we show that altruistic agents trade more often than selfish agents.     

低碳经济下的清洁发展机制(CDM)分析——基于SWOT的角度

清洁发展机制(CDM)是《京都议定书》规定的发达国家与发展中国家互利共赢的减排机制,为中国经济的发展带来巨大的机遇和挑战。文章分析了CDM的含义以及经济机制,并运用管理学的SWOT模型对我国的CDM的机遇和挑战进行了综合分析。最后给出相应的结论和展望。     

治理机制对顾客参与价值共创行为的影响——虚拟品牌社区的实证研究

虚拟品牌社区是企业与顾客进行价值共创的重要平台,顾客参与价值共创行为对企业长远发展具有十分重要的作用。现有研究多是基于不同的理论从顾客视角出发探索顾客参与价值共创行为受到的心理动机和个人特征等因素的影响,鲜有从企业视角出发,探索治理机制对虚拟品牌社区中顾客参与价值共创行为的影响。本文立足交易成本理论与社会交换理论,从企业视角切入,引入关系质量作为中介变量,构建虚拟品牌社区治理机制、关系质量与顾客参与价值共创行为的关系整合模型。采用问卷调查法对模型进行验证,研究结果显示:(1)契约治理机制只对知识贡献行为产生显著正向影响,对顾客公民行为的影响不显著,而关系治理机制对知识贡献行为与顾客公民行为均具有显著正向影响。(2)关系质量在契约治理机制与顾客公民行为的关系中起完全中介作用,在契约治理机制与知识贡献行为、关系治理机制与知识贡献行为以及关系治理机制与顾客公民行为的关系中起部分中介作用。由研究结论可知,虚拟品牌社区一方面应综合运用契约治理机制与关系治理机制来有效地促进顾客参与价值共创行为,以弥补单独运用某一种治理机制存在的不足;另一方面也应注重关系质量在虚拟品牌社区中促进顾客参与价值共创行为的重要作用。这些研究发现为促进虚拟品牌社区的可持续发展提供了有价值的启示。     

The scope of satisfactory mechanisms for the provision of public goods

This paper establishes the existence of satisfactory public-good provision mechanisms when utilities are nonseparable. The assumptions used to obtain this result are: (1) that the public good is continuously variable; (2) that utility functions are parametrically representable and twice continuously differentiable; and (3) that the provision rule is a strictly increasing function of the reported marginal rates of substitution between the public good and the private good. The satisfactory mechanisms derived are all augmented Groves mechanisms and are equivalent to Groves mechanisms if, and only if, each consumer's utility function is additive in income.     

企业负债的作用和偿债保障机制研究

企业负债不仅起着税盾和财务杠杆作用 ,还能改善企业金融结构和提高市场价值、强化对企业经理的监督和约束。偿债保障机制分为事前保障和事后保障两大类 ,有自动履债、债权人的审慎和信用配给、流动性和可转换性、戳穿公司面纱等机制。我国的偿债保障机制薄弱 ,是因为在企业控制权转移、声誉机制、限制企业和企业经营者行为及介入企业治理、破产清算等方面都出现了障碍 ,而且目前实施的债转股也不符合可转换性的一般规则。     

Optimal collusion-resistant mechanisms with verification

We present the first general positive result on the construction of collusion-resistant mechanisms, that is, mechanisms that guarantee dominant strategies even when agents can form arbitrary coalitions and exchange compensations (sometimes referred to as transferable utilities or side payments). This is a much stronger solution concept as compared to truthful or even group strategyproof mechanisms, and only impossibility results were known for this type of mechanisms in the “classical” model.We describe collusion-resistant mechanisms with verification that return optimal solutions for a wide class of mechanism design problems (which includes utilitarian ones as a special case). Note that every collusion-resistant mechanism without verification must have an unbounded approximation factor and, in general, optimal solutions cannot be obtained even if we content ourselves with truthful (“non-collusion-resistant”) mechanisms. All these results apply to problems that have been extensively studied in the algorithmic mechanism design literature like, for instance, task scheduling and inter-domain routing.     

论竞争优势隔绝机制

隔绝机制能够形成竞争对手模仿企业资源和能力的壁垒,从而实现企业的持续竞争优势。研究了有效隔绝机制的特征,依据战略导向不同,从竞争对手和客户角度出发研究了有效隔绝机制的两大类型,并结合有效隔绝机制特征列举出了五种具体表现形式。     

农业结构调整的动力机制分析

农业结构调整的发生与发展,主要是因为有本质相同,规律相似的内外在动力机制,主要包括：产需平衡机制,利益均衡机制,产业南调均衡机制,区域协调发展机制,社会利益协调及可持续发展机制。     

组织中角色与信任的关系研究

组织成员的角色定位产生了组织信任的三种适应机制:信任适势机制、信任适理机制和信任适意机制.这三种机制降低了组织的运行成本,有利于组织获得合法性,提高了组织对自身和外界的调控程度.因此,组织在实现其效用最大化的理性目标上具有软性优势.     

A rationale for public intervention in disruptive technological development: public policy tools as trust-enabling mechanisms

This paper discusses how actors engage in knowing, testing and developing a new technology option in a situation of uncertainty about its potentialities. We demonstrate that two kinds of trust-enabling mechanisms help actors cope with the uncertainty: promise-securing mechanisms and judgement-enabling mechanisms. Our central argument is that public policy tools can play the role of such trust-enabling mechanisms. By analysing the attempt to change the paradigm in the electronic industry based on Moore's law from a clock to a clockless design, we show that they enabled key stages to unfold: building a community of interest around a common language and conventions, fostering exploration in specific frameworks, and developing collaborative projects around demonstrators up until the determination of a standard and the setting-up of the infrastructures.     

Why do popular mechanisms lack efficiency in random environments?

We consider the problem of randomly assigning n indivisible objects to n agents. Recent research introduced a promising mechanism, the probabilistic serial that has superior efficiency properties than the most common real-life mechanism random priority. On the other hand, mechanisms based on Gale's celebrated top trading cycles method have long dominated the indivisible goods literature (with the exception of the present context) thanks to their outstanding efficiency features. We present an equivalence result between the three kinds of mechanisms, that may help better understand why efficiency differences among popular mechanisms might arise in random environments. This result also suggests that the probabilistic serial and the random priority mechanisms can be viewed as two top trading cycles based mechanisms that essentially differ in the initial conditions of the market before trading starts.     

Foundations of Dominant-Strategy Mechanisms

Robert Wilson criticizes applied game theory's reliance on common-knowledge assumptions. In reaction to Wilson's critique, the recent literature of mechanism design has adopted the goal of finding detail-free mechanisms in order to eliminate this reliance. In practice this has meant restricting attention to simple mechanisms such as dominant-strategy mechanisms. However, there has been little theoretical foundation for this approach. In particular it is not clear the search for an optimal mechanism that does not rely on common-knowledge assumption would lead to simpler mechanisms rather than more complicated ones. This paper tries to fill the void. In the context of an expected revenue maximizing auctioneer, we investigate some foundations for using simple, dominant-strategy auctions.