Strategy-proof mechanisms with monotonic preferences: The case of pure public goods economies

This paper explores a typical public finance problem where there are m public goods (education, transportation, police, etc.) provided in limited amounts due to budget constraints, and where individual's preferences are not known. It is shown that all institutions (i.e., decision mechanisms) available to decide the allocation of goods have very unattractive properties: either the decision mechanisms are not compatible with individual's incentives, or they are dictatorial (i.e, they are based on a single individual's preferences)