Social Choice and Strategic Decisions

Social Choice and Strategic Decisions

Author: David Austen-Smith

Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media

Published: 2006-03-30

Total Pages: 332

ISBN-13: 354027295X

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Social choices, about expenditures on government programs, or about public policy more broadly, or indeed from any conceivable set of alternatives, are determined by politics. This book is a collection of essays that tie together the fields spanned by Jeffrey S. Banks' research on this subject. It examines the strategic aspects of political decision-making, including the choices of voters in committees, the positioning of candidates in electoral campaigns, and the behavior of parties in legislatures. The chapters of this book contribute to the theory of voting with incomplete information, to the literature on Downsian and probabilistic voting models of elections, to the theory of social choice in distributive environments, and to the theory of optimal dynamic decision-making. The essays employ a spectrum of research methods, from game-theoretic analysis, to empirical investigation, to experimental testing.


Strategic Social Choice

Strategic Social Choice

Author: Bezalel Peleg

Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media

Published: 2010-08-25

Total Pages: 163

ISBN-13: 3642138756

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This book was written mainly during the Spring periods of 2008 and 2009, when the ?rst author was visiting Maastricht University. Financial s- port both from the Dutch Science Foundation NWO (grants 040. 11. 013 and 0. 40. 11. 082) and from the research institute METEOR (Maastricht Univ- sity) is gratefully acknowledged. Jerusalem Bezalel Peleg Maastricht Hans Peters April 2010 v Contents Preview to this book . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xi Part I Representations of constitutions 1 Introduction to Part I. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 1. 1 Motivation and summary. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 1. 2 Arrow’s constitution. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 1. 3 Arrow’s Impossibility Theorem and its implications. . . . . . . . . 4 1. 4 Ga ̈rdenfors’s model. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 1. 5 Notes and comments. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 2 Constitutions, e?ectivity functions, and game forms . . . . . . 7 2. 1 Motivation and summary. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 2. 2 Constitutions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8 2. 3 Constitutions and e?ectivity functions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12 2. 4 Game forms and a representation theorem. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16 2. 5 Representation and simultaneous exercising of rights. . . . . . . . 19 2. 6 Notes and comments. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19 3 Nash consistent representations. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21 3. 1 Motivation and summary. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21 3. 2 Existence of Nash consistent representations: a general result 22 3. 3 The case of ?nitely many alternatives. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24 3. 4 Nash consistent representations of topological e?ectivity functions. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29 3. 5 Veto functions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34 3. 5. 1 Finitely many alternatives. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34 3. 5. 2 Topological veto functions. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36 3. 6 Liberalism and Pareto optimality of Nash equilibria. . . . . . . . . 40 3. 7 Notes and comments. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42 vii viii Contents 4 Acceptable representations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45 4. 1 Motivation and summary. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .


Social Choice Theory

Social Choice Theory

Author: Jerry S. Kelly

Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media

Published: 2013-03-09

Total Pages: 174

ISBN-13: 366209925X

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This is a textbook introducing selected topics in formal social choice theory. Social choice theory studies group choices that are based on information about preferences of members of the group (voting rules being one important special case). This involves economics, which provides the method of modelling individual decision making; political philosophy, which provides criteria about the allocation of decision-influencing power; and game theory, which provides a framework for thinking about the strategies individuals employ in trying to influence the group choice. The goal of this book is to take basic ideas like impossibility theorems, rights exercising and strategy proofness and give the student just enough technical background to be able to understand these ideas in a logically rigorous way. This is done through a set of 250 exercises that constitute the heart of the book and which differentiate this book from all other texts in social choice theory.


Welfare Economics and Social Choice Theory

Welfare Economics and Social Choice Theory

Author: Allan M. Feldman

Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media

Published: 2006-06-14

Total Pages: 401

ISBN-13: 038729368X

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This book covers the main topics of welfare economics — general equilibrium models of exchange and production, Pareto optimality, un certainty, externalities and public goods — and some of the major topics of social choice theory — compensation criteria, fairness, voting. Arrow's Theorem, and the theory of implementation. The underlying question is this: "Is a particular economic or voting mechanism good or bad for society?" Welfare economics is mainly about whether the market mechanism is good or bad; social choice is largely about whether voting mechanisms, or other more abstract mechanisms, can improve upon the results of the market. This second edition updates the material of the first, written by Allan Feldman. It incorporates new sections to existing first-edition chapters, and it includes several new ones. Chapters 4, 6, 11, 15 and 16 are new, added in this edition. The first edition of the book grew out of an undergraduate welfare economics course at Brown University. The book is intended for the undergraduate student who has some prior familiarity with microeconomics. However, the book is also useful for graduate students and professionals, economists and non-economists, who want an overview of welfare and social choice results unburdened by detail and mathematical complexity. Welfare economics and social choice both probably suffer from ex cessively technical treatments in professional journals and monographs.


A Primer in Social Choice Theory

A Primer in Social Choice Theory

Author: Wulf Gaertner

Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA

Published: 2006

Total Pages: 222

ISBN-13: 9780199297511

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This introductory text explores the theory of social choice. Written as a primer suitable for advanced undergraduates and graduates, this text will act as an important starting point for students grappling with the complexities of social choice theory. Rigorous yet accessible, this primer avoids the use of technical language and provides an up-to-date discussion of this rapidly developing field. This is the first in a series of texts published in association with the LSE.


Social Choice and Individual Values

Social Choice and Individual Values

Author: Kenneth Joseph Arrow

Publisher: Yale University Press

Published: 1963-01-01

Total Pages: 152

ISBN-13: 9780300013641

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The literature on the theory of social choice has grown considerably beyond the few items in existence at the time the first edition of this book appeared in 1951. Some of the new literature has dealt with the technical, mathematical aspects, more with the interpretive. My own thinking has also evolved somewhat, although I remain far from satisfied with present formulations. The exhaustion of the first edition provides a convenient time for a selective and personal stocktaking in the form of an appended commentary entitled, 'Notes on the Theory of Social Choice, 1963, ' containing reflections on the text and its omissions and on some of the more recent literature. This form has seemed more appropriate than a revision of the original text, which has to some extent acquired a life of its own.


The Strategy of Social Choice

The Strategy of Social Choice

Author: H. Moulin

Publisher: Elsevier

Published: 2014-07-14

Total Pages: 227

ISBN-13: 148325688X

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Advanced Textbooks in Economics, Volume 18: The Strategy of Social Choice focuses on the social, economics, and political implications of social choice. The publication first surveys introduction, social choice functions and correspondences, and monotonicity and the arrow theorem. Discussions focus on efficiency, anonymity and neutrality, classifying voting methods, normative versus positive approach to voting, voting and the non-strategic theory of social choice, and development of the strategic theory of voting. The text then ponders on strategy-proofness and monotonicity and sophisticated voting. Topics include sophisticated implementation, voting by binary choices, strategy-proof social choice functions and game forms, Gibbard-Satterthwaite theorem, and restricted domains. The manuscript examines cooperative voting and voting by veto, including the minority principle, proportional veto core, voting by integer veto, effectivity functions, maximal and stable effectivity functions, and implementation by Nash equilibrium. The text is a dependable source of data for researchers interested in the process of social choice.


Mathematics of Social Choice

Mathematics of Social Choice

Author: Christoph Borgers

Publisher: SIAM

Published: 2010-01-01

Total Pages: 233

ISBN-13: 0898717620

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Mathematics of Social Choice is a fun and accessible book that looks at the choices made by groups of people with different preferences, needs, and interests. Divided into three parts, the text first examines voting methods for selecting or ranking candidates. A brief second part addresses compensation problems wherein an indivisible item must be assigned to one of several people who are equally entitled to ownership of the item, with monetary compensation paid to the others. The third part discusses the problem of sharing a divisible resource among several people. Mathematics of Social Choice can be used by undergraduates studying mathematics and students whose only mathematical background is elementary algebra. More advanced material can be skipped without any loss of continuity. The book can also serve as an easy introduction to topics such as the Gibbard-Satterthwaite theorem, Arrow's theorem, and fair division for readers with more mathematical background.


Handbook of Computational Social Choice

Handbook of Computational Social Choice

Author: Felix Brandt

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2016-04-25

Total Pages: 553

ISBN-13: 1316489752

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The rapidly growing field of computational social choice, at the intersection of computer science and economics, deals with the computational aspects of collective decision making. This handbook, written by thirty-six prominent members of the computational social choice community, covers the field comprehensively. Chapters devoted to each of the field's major themes offer detailed introductions. Topics include voting theory (such as the computational complexity of winner determination and manipulation in elections), fair allocation (such as algorithms for dividing divisible and indivisible goods), coalition formation (such as matching and hedonic games), and many more. Graduate students, researchers, and professionals in computer science, economics, mathematics, political science, and philosophy will benefit from this accessible and self-contained book.


Effectivity Functions in Social Choice

Effectivity Functions in Social Choice

Author: J. Abdou

Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media

Published: 1991-03-31

Total Pages: 222

ISBN-13: 9780792311478

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The present book treats a highly specialized topic, namely effec tivity functions, which are a tool for describing the power structure implicit in social choice situations of various kind. One of the ad vantages of effectivity functions is that they seem to contain exactly the information which is needed in several problems of implementa tion, that is in designing the rules for individual behaviour given that this behaviour at equilibrium should result in a prescribed functional connection between preferences and outcome. We shall be interested in both formal properties of effectiv ity functions and applications of them in social choice theory, and among such applications in particular the implementation problem. This choice of emphasis necessarily means that some other topics are treated only superficially or not at all. We do not attempt to cover all contributions to the field, rather we try to put some of the results together in order to get a reasonably coherent theory about the role of the power structure in cooperative implementation. The authors are indebted to many persons for assistance and advice during the work on this book. In particular, we would like to thank Peter Fristrup and Bodil Hansen for critical reading of the manuscript, and Lene Petersen for typesetting in '.lEX.