In game theory

Game theory

Game theory is a mathematical method for analyzing calculated circumstances, such as in games, where a person’s success is based upon the choices of others...

, and particularly mechanism design

Mechanism design

Mechanism design is a field in game theory studying solution concepts for a class of private information games...

, participation constraints or rational participation constraints are said to be satisfied if a mechanism leaves all participants at least as well off as they would have been if they hadn't participated.

Unfortunately, it can frequently be shown that participation constraints are incompatible with other desirable properties of mechanisms for many purposes.

One kind of participation constraint is the participation criterion

Participation criterion

The participation criterion is a voting system criterion. It is also known as the "no show paradox". It has been defined as follows:* In a deterministic framework, the participation criterion says that the addition of a ballot, where candidate A is strictly preferred to candidate B, to an existing...

 for voting systems. It requires that by voting, a voter should not decrease the odds of their preferred candidates winning.