English

Two-player incentive compatible outcome functions are affine maximizers

Combinatorics 2019-12-10 v5 Computer Science and Game Theory

Abstract

In mechanism design, for a given type space, there may be incentive compatible outcome functions which are not affine maximizers. Using tools from linear algebra and tropical geometry, we prove that for two-player games on a discrete type space, any given outcome function can be turned into an affine maximizer through a nontrivial perturbation of the type space. Furthermore, our theorems are the strongest possible in this setup.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1710.05218,
  title  = {Two-player incentive compatible outcome functions are affine maximizers},
  author = {Bo Lin and Ngoc Mai Tran},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1710.05218},
  year   = {2019}
}

Comments

16 pages, 2 figures; to appear in Linear Algebra and its Applications

R2 v1 2026-06-22T22:13:41.231Z