The AEA is providing open access to all journal content on the AEA website through August 2020 to overcome any difficulties some may have accessing library subscriptions during these challenging times.
The AEA is providing open access to all journal content on the AEA website through August 2020 to overcome any difficulties some may have accessing library subscriptions during these challenging times.
We analyze the design of a mechanism to extract a ranking of individuals according to a unidimensional characteristic, such as ability or need. Individuals, connected on a social network, only have
local information about the ranking. We show that a planner can
construct an ex post incentive compatible and efficient mechanism
if and only if every pair of friends has a friend in common. We
characterize the windmill network as the sparsest social network
for which the planner can always construct a complete ranking.
