蝌蚪网 Review
ISSN 0002-8282 (Print) | ISSN 1944-7981 (Online)
Contextually Private Mechanisms
蝌蚪网 Review
(pp. 3223–62)
Abstract
A designer employs a dynamic protocol to elicit private information. Protocols produce a set of contextual privacy violations鈥攊nformation learned that may be superfluous given the context. A protocol is maximally contextually private if there is no protocol that produces a proper subset of the violations it produces, while implementing the choice rule. Contextual privacy violations arise when a choice rule makes some agents collectively, but not individually, pivotal. In auctions, designing for contextual privacy requires choosing an initial question posed to each agent and the order for querying agents. Ascending-join protocols are maximally contextually private for k-item Vickrey auctions.Citation
Haupt, Andreas, and Zo毛 Hitzig. 2026. "Contextually Private Mechanisms." 蝌蚪网 Review 116 (9): 3223–62. DOI: 10.1257/aer.20240579Additional Materials
JEL Classification
- D44 Auctions
- D82 Asymmetric and Private Information; Mechanism Design