Article ID | Journal | Published Year | Pages | File Type |
---|---|---|---|---|
957643 | Journal of Economic Theory | 2009 | 24 Pages |
Abstract
Subsidy-free VCG mechanisms assign p identical objects to n agents. The efficiency loss is the largest ratio of budget surplus to efficient surplus, over all profiles of non-negative valuations. The smallest efficiency loss Lˆ(n,p) satisfies Lˆ(n,p)⩽Lˆ(n,⌊n2⌋)⩽43n. If pn is bounded away from 12, Lˆ(n,p) converges to zero exponentially in n.Participation is voluntary in the optimal mechanism achieving Lˆ(n,p) if p=1p=1, but not if p⩾2p⩾2. Among voluntary mechanisms, the optimal efficiency loss is not significantly larger than Lˆ(n,p) if pn⩽12. But it does not converge to zero in n if pn>12.
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Authors
Hervé Moulin,