Abstract
Recently, we find the rise of criticisms in the field of mechanism design, which is to design a mechanism or system for achieving social goals such as efficiency and equity in the distribution of goods and services.
First of all, there is a criticism from experimentalists. In the verification of various mechanisms using human subjects in laboratories, these designed mechanisms do not necessarily function as prescribed. This fact itself is a criticism to not only this particular field, but also extending to economics as a whole. Departing from the initial stage of surprise with why theoretically expected results cannot be observed in laboratories, we are now entering the stage of determining why they do not function and what are the essential factors involved.
Second criticism involves the presumptions in the theories themselves. Mechanism design has not paid sufficient attention to information exchanges between people, the cost of processing, and the selections of equilibrium concepts. What is questioned now is the real validity of frameworks themselves, on which the theories are nested.
This report is, through exploratory works on issues of mechanism design, to contemplate hints of new approaches to the questions: what it means to design a mechanism; how to design them; and what shall be the next step economics needs to aim for.
Research was partially supported by the Grant in Aid for Scientific Research 15310023 of the Ministry of Education, Science and Culture in Japan.
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Saijo, T. (2007). Design Science: A Prelude. In: Oda, S.H. (eds) Developments on Experimental Economics. Lecture Notes in Economics and Mathematical Systems, vol 590. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-540-68660-6_8
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