Information Requirements for Resolving Implementation Impossibilities

Abstract

We develop a framework for assessing implementation impossibilities through the information required to resolve them. Domain covers describe information used to select a mechanism without restricting admissible preferences. Coarsening a cover weakens the required information. In quasi-linear public decision problems with a status quo, we study two impossibilities of dominant-strategy implementation: combining efficiency and individual rationality with either budget feasibility or budget balancedness. Under an interval cover based on bounds on maximal social surplus, we characterize the social choice rules implementable in dominant strategies and satisfying the first set of axioms. Under a surplus-level cover based on exact surplus levels, we obtain the corresponding characterization for the second set of axioms. Both covers are minimal: no strictly coarser cover permits implementation under the respective requirements. These economically interpretable minimal covers deepen our understanding of the informational severity of each impossibility.