Comparing Mechanisms by their Vulnerability to Manipulation

October 14, 2009
Parag Pathak | MIT, Dept of Economics

This paper introduces a method to compare direct mechanisms based on their vulnerability to manipulation or deviation from truthful reporting. We explore the following idea: if a player can manipulate mechanism psi whenever some player can manipulate mechanism phi, then psi is more manipulable than phi. Our notion generates a partial ordering on mechanisms based on their degree of manipulability. We illustrate the concept by comparing several well-known mechanisms in the matching and auction literature. The applications include comparisons between stable matching mechanisms, school choice mechanisms, auctions for internet advertising, and multi-unit auctions.

This talk is based on joint work with Tayfun Sonmez of Boston College.

Speaker Details

Parag Pathak is an economic theorist best known for his work on matching markets. He has been involved in designing the system used by the New York City Department of Education to assign students to high schools and the student assignment system in Boston Public Schools. He has also worked on various topics in applied microeconomics, including urban economics and the economics of education. He received his A.B. and S.M. Harvard University in Applied Mathematics in 2002, and his Ph.D. at Harvard in 2007.
Formerly a Junior Fellow at Harvard’s Society of Fellows, he is currently the Career Development Assistant Professor of Economics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.