Designing Economic Mechanisms

'Economic mechanism design has both theoretical and practical importance. This book, by two founders of the field, provides a wonderful guide for those who would design mechanisms. It is a major achievement, providing deep insights based on the authors' experience and wisdom. It should be required reading for all.' John Ledyard, California Institute of Technology 'This book shows how a mechanism designer, given the organization's goal, can construct a decentralized mechanism, wherein no agent directly reveals private information and yet, through message exchanges that are minimal (in an appropriate sense), enough information is gathered so that goal-fulfilling actions can be taken.' Thomas A. Marschak, University of California, Berkeley 'In this masterly and important book, Leonid Hurwicz, the founder of the theory of mechanism design, and Stanley Reiter, a leading pioneer in the field, consolidate their long-standing collaboration on how to design mechanisms that achieve society's allocational goals.' Eric Maskin, Nobel Laureate, Princeton University 'The introduction to economic theory of mechanism design, the formal analysis of economic institutions, is one of the most important developments in economics in the last half century. This book both describes and extends the state of understanding in a large and important segment of mechanism design and will define the frontier of the area for some time to come.' Andrew Postlewaite, University of Pennsylvania 'This book's innovative techniques can be useful for finding feasible solutions in both theoretical and applied statistical multivariable optimization problems.' Stan Lipovetsky, Technometrics