Admissible Alternatives under Decentralized Interaction: Boundary Awareness

Admissible Alternatives under Decentralized Interaction: Boundary Awareness | Research Square window.SnipcartSettings = { analytics: { enabled: false } }; (function() { var accessVector = localStorage.getItem('access_vector') || ''; window.dataLayer = window.dataLayer || []; if (accessVector) { window.dataLayer.push({ user: { profile: { profileInfo: { snid: accessVector } } } }); } })(); (function(w,d,s,l,i){w[l]=w[l]||[];w[l].push({'gtm.start':new Date().getTime(),event:'gtm.js'});var f=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0],j=d.createElement(s),dl=l!='dataLayer'?'&l='+l:'';j.async=true;j.src='https://www.googletagmanager.com/gtm.js?id='+i+dl;f.parentNode.insertBefore(j,f);})(window,document,'script','dataLayer','GTM-K279D39R'); Browse Preprints In Review Journals COVID-19 Preprints AJE Video Bytes Research Tools Research Promotion AJE Professional Editing AJE Rubriq About Preprint Platform In Review Editorial Policies Our Team Advisory Board Help Center Sign In Submit a Preprint Cite Share Download PDF Research Article Admissible Alternatives under Decentralized Interaction: Boundary Awareness José Rueda-Llano This is a preprint; it has not been peer reviewed by a journal. https://doi.org/ 10.21203/rs.3.rs-8917783/v1 This work is licensed under a CC BY 4.0 License Status: Posted Version 1 posted You are reading this latest preprint version Abstract This paper studies the stability of decentralized admissibility. Individuals are represented by compact convex acceptance sets—capturing regions of technical feasibility, economic viability, or institutional and normative acceptability—over a continuous alternative space. Collective admissibility is determined pointwise, without central coordination or cross-alternative comparison. The object of analysis is therefore not selection among admissible alternatives, but the endogenous formation of the admissible set itself. Under minimal structural constraints, admissibility reduces to local support–counting rules. When informational granularity is limited to binary membership (Boundary Blindness), such rules are topologically fragile: arbitrarily small perturbations of individual feasibility constraints may induce discontinuous contractions of the admissible region, rendering it topologically unstable. We show that this fragility is not inherent to decentralization, but to informational coarseness. We introduce Boundary Awareness, a minimal refinement that allows the aggregation process to distinguish interior from boundary support. Under Boundary Awareness, Robust Admissibility forces admissibility to collapse to an interior-threshold form. Conversely, any signal structure that fails to distinguish interior from boundary membership cannot sustain robustness. Boundary Awareness is therefore minimal among informational regimes that restore topological stability. The results isolate informational resolution—not institutional centralization—as the determinant of robustness in decentralized interaction. JEL Classification: C02 , D02 , D83 Economic Theory decentralized admissibility informational granularity boundary awareness robustness lower semi-continuity set-valued correspondences Full Text Additional Declarations The authors declare no competing interests. Cite Share Download PDF Status: Posted Version 1 posted You are reading this latest preprint version Research Square lets you share your work early, gain feedback from the community, and start making changes to your manuscript prior to peer review in a journal. As a division of Research Square Company, we’re committed to making research communication faster, fairer, and more useful. We do this by developing innovative software and high quality services for the global research community. Our growing team is made up of researchers and industry professionals working together to solve the most critical problems facing scientific publishing. Also discoverable on Platform About Our Team In Review Editorial Policies Advisory Board Help Center Resources Author Services Accessibility API Access RSS feed Manage Cookie Preferences © Research Square 2026 | ISSN 2693-5015 (online) Privacy Policy Terms of Service Do Not Sell My Personal Information {"props":{"pageProps":{"initialData":{"identity":"rs-8917783","acceptedTermsAndConditions":true,"allowDirectSubmit":true,"archivedVersions":[],"articleType":"Research Article","associatedPublications":[],"authors":[{"id":593938399,"identity":"b3e96329-9d99-439c-a473-a91ad10cf0ca","order_by":0,"name":"José Rueda-Llano","email":"data:image/png;base64,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","orcid":"","institution":"Friedrich-Schiller University Jena","correspondingAuthor":true,"prefix":"","firstName":"José","middleName":"","lastName":"Rueda-Llano","suffix":""}],"badges":[],"createdAt":"2026-02-19 13:42:08","currentVersionCode":1,"declarations":{"humanSubjects":false,"vertebrateSubjects":false,"conflictsOfInterestStatement":false,"humanSubjectEthicalGuidelines":false,"humanSubjectConsent":false,"humanSubjectClinicalTrial":false,"humanSubjectCaseReport":false,"vertebrateSubjectEthicalGuidelines":false},"doi":"10.21203/rs.3.rs-8917783/v1","doiUrl":"https://doi.org/10.21203/rs.3.rs-8917783/v1","draftVersion":[],"editorialEvents":[],"editorialNote":"","failedWorkflow":false,"files":[{"id":103050016,"identity":"5045e991-c0d3-48ef-a4d3-09eabce32238","added_by":"auto","created_at":"2026-02-20 07:47:40","extension":"pdf","order_by":1,"title":"","display":"","copyAsset":false,"role":"manuscript-pdf","size":297199,"visible":true,"origin":"","legend":"","description":"","filename":"paperCRED.pdf","url":"https://assets-eu.researchsquare.com/files/rs-8917783/v1_covered_bdaac230-ebd4-415f-ae8f-ad32f0b53838.pdf"}],"financialInterests":"The authors declare no competing interests.","formattedTitle":"\u003cp\u003eAdmissible Alternatives under Decentralized Interaction: Boundary Awareness\u003c/p\u003e","fulltext":[],"fulltextSource":"","fullText":"","funders":[],"hasAdminPriorityOnWorkflow":false,"hasManuscriptDocX":false,"hasOptedInToPreprint":true,"hasPassedJournalQc":"","hasAnyPriority":true,"hideJournal":true,"highlight":"","institution":"","isAcceptedByJournal":false,"isAuthorSuppliedPdf":true,"isDeskRejected":"","isHiddenFromSearch":false,"isInQc":false,"isInWorkflow":false,"isPdf":true,"isPdfUpToDate":true,"isWithdrawnOrRetracted":false,"journal":{"display":true,"email":"[email protected]","identity":"researchsquare","isNatureJournal":false,"hasQc":true,"allowDirectSubmit":true,"externalIdentity":"","sideBox":"","snPcode":"","submissionUrl":"/submission","title":"Research Square","twitterHandle":"researchsquare","acdcEnabled":true,"dfaEnabled":false,"editorialSystem":"","reportingPortfolio":"","inReviewEnabled":false,"inReviewRevisionsEnabled":true},"keywords":"decentralized admissibility, informational granularity, boundary awareness, robustness, lower semi-continuity, set-valued correspondences","lastPublishedDoi":"10.21203/rs.3.rs-8917783/v1","lastPublishedDoiUrl":"https://doi.org/10.21203/rs.3.rs-8917783/v1","license":{"name":"CC BY 4.0","url":"https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/"},"manuscriptAbstract":"\u003cp\u003eThis paper studies the stability of decentralized admissibility. Individuals are represented by compact convex acceptance sets—capturing regions of technical feasibility, economic viability, or institutional and normative acceptability—over a continuous alternative space. Collective admissibility is determined pointwise, without central coordination or cross-alternative comparison. The object of analysis is therefore not selection among admissible alternatives, but the endogenous formation of the admissible set itself.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eUnder minimal structural constraints, admissibility reduces to local support–counting rules. \u0026nbsp;When informational granularity is limited to binary membership (Boundary Blindness), such rules are topologically fragile: arbitrarily small perturbations of individual feasibility constraints may induce discontinuous contractions of the admissible region, rendering it topologically unstable.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eWe show that this fragility is not inherent to decentralization, but to informational coarseness. We introduce Boundary Awareness, a minimal refinement that allows the aggregation process to distinguish interior from boundary support. Under Boundary Awareness, Robust Admissibility forces admissibility to collapse to an interior-threshold form. Conversely, any signal structure that fails to distinguish interior from boundary membership cannot sustain robustness.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eBoundary Awareness is therefore minimal among informational regimes that restore topological stability. The results isolate informational resolution—not institutional centralization—as the determinant of robustness in decentralized interaction.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eJEL Classification: C02 , D02 , D83\u003c/p\u003e","manuscriptTitle":"Admissible Alternatives under Decentralized Interaction: Boundary Awareness","msid":"","msnumber":"","nonDraftVersions":[{"code":1,"date":"2026-02-20 02:32:46","doi":"10.21203/rs.3.rs-8917783/v1","editorialEvents":[{"type":"communityComments","content":0}],"status":"published","journal":{"display":true,"email":"[email protected]","identity":"researchsquare","isNatureJournal":false,"hasQc":true,"allowDirectSubmit":true,"externalIdentity":"","sideBox":"","snPcode":"","submissionUrl":"/submission","title":"Research Square","twitterHandle":"researchsquare","acdcEnabled":true,"dfaEnabled":false,"editorialSystem":"","reportingPortfolio":"","inReviewEnabled":false,"inReviewRevisionsEnabled":true}}],"origin":"","ownerIdentity":"26140a4d-0af4-47ac-b4a3-816d90b6227e","owner":[],"postedDate":"February 20th, 2026","published":true,"recentEditorialEvents":[],"rejectedJournal":[],"revision":"","amendment":"","status":"posted","subjectAreas":[{"id":63204223,"name":"Economic Theory"}],"tags":[],"updatedAt":"2026-02-20T02:32:46+00:00","versionOfRecord":[],"versionCreatedAt":"2026-02-20 02:32:46","video":"","vorDoi":"","vorDoiUrl":"","workflowStages":[]},"version":"v1","identity":"rs-8917783","journalConfig":"researchsquare"},"__N_SSP":true},"page":"/article/[identity]/[[...version]]","query":{"redirect":"/article/rs-8917783","identity":"rs-8917783","version":["v1"]},"buildId":"XKTyCvWXoU3ODBz1xrDgd","isFallback":false,"isExperimentalCompile":false,"dynamicIds":[84888],"gssp":true,"scriptLoader":[]}