Econometrica: Sep, 1997, Volume 65, Issue 5

Virtual Bayesian Implementation

https://doi.org/0012-9682(199709)65:5<1175:VBI>2.0.CO;2-Y
p. 1175-1199

John Duggan

Allowing for incomplete information, this paper characterizes the social choice functions that can be approximated by the equilibrium outcomes of a mechanism: incentive compatibility is necessary and almost sufficient for virtual Bayesian implementability. In conjunction with a second condition, Bayesian incentive consistency, incentive compatibility is also sufficient. This new condition is weak--under standard topological and informational assumptions, it is satisfied by every social choice function. The type sets of the agents are taken to be arbitrary (possibly infinite) measurable spaces. An example shows that there are virtually (in fact, exactly) Bayesian implementable social choice functions that are not virtually implementable in iteratively undominated strategies.