Subjects -> SOCIAL SERVICES AND WELFARE (Total: 224 journals)
Similar Journals
 Social Choice and WelfareJournal Prestige (SJR): 0.644 Citation Impact (citeScore): 1Number of Followers: 12      Hybrid journal (It can contain Open Access articles) ISSN (Print) 1432-217X - ISSN (Online) 0176-1714 Published by Springer-Verlag  [2467 journals]
• Where should your daughter go to college' An axiomatic analysis

Abstract: Abstract We consider the problem of choosing a location in an interval so as to best take into account the preferences of two agents who will use this location. One has single-peaked preferences and the other single-dipped preferences. The most preferred location for the agent with single-peaked preferences is known and it is the least preferred location for the agent with single-dipped preferences. We show that the only efficient and strategy-proof rules are dictatorial.
PubDate: 2022-11-18

• The possibility of generalized social choice functions and Nash’s
independence of irrelevant alternatives

Abstract: Abstract Social choice functions are generalized to handle Nash’s independence of irrelevant alternatives. Possibility and impossibility results are established.
PubDate: 2022-11-09

• Preference aggregation for couples

Abstract: Abstract We study the aggregation of a couple’s preferences over their respective jobs when the couple enters a centralized labor market jointly, such as the market for hospital residencies. In such markets couples usually need to submit a joint preference ordering over pairs of jobs and thus we are interested in preference aggregation rules which start with two individual preference orderings over single jobs and produce a preference ordering of pairs of jobs. We first study the Lexicographic and the Rank-Based Leximin aggregation rules, as well as a large class of preference aggregation rules which contains these two rules. Then we propose a smaller family of parametric aggregation rules, the k-Lexi-Pairing rules, which call for a systematic way of compromising between the two partners. The parameter k indicates the degree to which one partner is prioritized, with the most equitable Rank-Based Leximin rule at one extreme and the least equitable Lexicographic rule at the other extreme. Since couples care about geographic proximity, a parametric family of preference aggregation rules which build on the k-Lexi-Pairing rules and express the couple’s preference for togetherness is also identified. We provide axiomatic characterizations of the proposed preference aggregation rules.
PubDate: 2022-11-01

• Self-implementation of social choice correspondences in Nash equilibrium

Abstract: Abstract A social choice correspondence is Nash self-implementable if it can be implemented in Nash equilibrium by a social choice function that selects from it as the game form. We provide a complete characterization of all unanimous and anonymous Nash self-implementable social choice correspondences when there are two agents or two alternatives. For the case of three agents and three alternatives, only the top correspondence is Nash self-implementable. In all other cases, every Nash self-implementable social choice correspondence contains the top correspondence and is contained in the Pareto correspondence. In particular, when the number of alternatives is at least four, every social choice correspondence containing the top correspondence plus the intersection of the Pareto correspondence with a fixed set of alternatives, is self-implementable.
PubDate: 2022-11-01

• Obvious manipulations in cake-cutting

Abstract: Abstract In the classical cake-cutting problem, strategy-proofness is a very costly requirement in terms of fairness: for $$n=2$$ it implies a dictatorial allocation, whereas for $$n\ge 3$$ it implies that one agent receives no cake. We show that a weaker version of this property recently suggested by Troyan and Morril (J Econ Theory 185:104970, 2019) is compatible with the fairness property of proportionality, which guarantees that each agent receives 1/n of the cake. Both properties are satisfied by the leftmost-leaves mechanism, an adaptation of the Dubins–Spanier moving knife procedure. Most other classical proportional mechanisms in the literature are obviously manipulable, including the original moving knife mechanism and some other variants of it.
PubDate: 2022-11-01

• The average-of-awards rule for claims problems

Abstract: Abstract Given a claims problem, the average-of-awards rule ( $${\text {AA}}$$ ) selects the expected value of the uniform distribution over the set of awards vectors. The $${\text {AA}}$$ rule is the center of gravity of the core of the coalitional game associated with a claims problem, so it corresponds to the core-center. We show that this rule satisfies a good number of properties so as to be included in the inventory of division rules. We also provide several representations of the $${\text {AA}}$$ rule and a procedure to compute it in terms of the parameters that define the problem.
PubDate: 2022-11-01

• Effects of majority-vote reward mechanism on cooperation: a public good
experimental study

Abstract: Abstract This paper conducts a laboratory experiment to examine the effectiveness of majority-vote reward mechanism on cooperation, and to compare its effects with that of peer reward and no reward in the voluntary contribution mechanism. According to the experimental result, it shows that whether individuals have homogeneous or heterogeneous marginal per capita return of the public good, the majority-vote reward mechanism is significantly effective in facilitating cooperation.
PubDate: 2022-11-01

• Marginalism, egalitarianism and efficiency in multi-choice games

Abstract: Abstract The search for a compromise between marginalism and egalitarianism has given rise to many discussions. In the context of cooperative games, this compromise can be understood as a trade-off between the Shapley value and the Equal division value. We investigate this compromise in the context of multi-choice games in which players have several activity levels. To do so, we propose new extensions of the Shapley value and of the Equal division value to multi-choice games. Contrary to the existing solution concepts for multi-choice games, each one of these values satisfies a Core condition introduced by Grabisch and Xie (Math Methods Oper Res 66(3):491–512, 2007), namely Multi-Efficiency. We compromise between marginalism and egalitarianism by introducing the multi-choice Egalitarian Shapley values, computed as the convex combination of our extensions. To conduct this study, we introduce new axioms for multi-choice games. This allows us to provide an axiomatic foundation for each of these values.
PubDate: 2022-11-01

• Need, equity, and accountability

Abstract: Abstract We report the results of a vignette study with an online sample of the German adult population in which we analyze the interplay between need, equity, and accountability in third-party distribution decisions. We asked participants to divide firewood between two hypothetical persons who either differ in their need for heat or in their productivity in terms of their ability to chop wood. The study systematically varies the persons’ accountability for their neediness as well as for their productivity. We find that participants distribute significantly fewer logs of wood to persons who are held accountable for their disadvantage. Independently of being held accountable or not, the needier person is partially compensated with a share of logs that exceeds her contribution, while the person who contributes less is given a share of logs smaller than her need share. Moreover, there is a domain effect in terms of participants being more sensitive to lower contributions than to greater need.
PubDate: 2022-11-01

• Inequality, poverty and the composition of redistribution

Abstract: Abstract We study the use of social expenditures and regulation for redistribution. When regulated goods are essential in the consumption bundle of the poor, a high poverty rate creates incentives to increase redistribution through regulation. By contrast, inequality directs redistribution towards social expenditures. We propose a theoretical model that captures the trade-off between these two redistributive policies and test the model implications with a novel municipality dataset on income and local government policies. Theory predicts and empirical evidence supports that failing to account for poverty biases the effect of inequality on redistribution. Our evidence also reflects the positive connection between poverty and the use of regulation for redistribution.
PubDate: 2022-11-01

• Optimality of the coordinate-wise median mechanism for strategyproof
facility location in two dimensions

Abstract: Abstract We consider the facility location problem in two dimensions. In particular, we consider a setting where agents have Euclidean preferences, defined by their ideal points, for a facility to be located in $$\mathbb {R}^2$$ . We show that for the p-norm ( $$p \ge 1$$ ) objective, the coordinate-wise median mechanism (CM) has the lowest worst-case approximation ratio in the class of deterministic, anonymous, and strategyproof mechanisms. For the minisum objective and an odd number of agents n, we show that CM has a worst-case approximation ratio (AR) of $$\sqrt{2}\frac{\sqrt{n^2+1}}{n+1}$$ . For the p-norm social cost objective ( $$p\ge 2$$ ), we find that the AR for CM is bounded above by $$2^{\frac{3}{2}-\frac{2}{p}}$$ . We conjecture that the AR of CM actually equals the lower bound $$2^{1-\frac{1}{p}}$$ (as is the case for $$p=2$$ and $$p=\infty$$ ) for any $$p\ge 2$$ .
PubDate: 2022-10-25

• A topological characterization of generalized stable sets

Abstract: Abstract The purpose of this note is to provide a topological characterization for the existence of the generalized stable set introduced by Van Deemen (Soc Choice Welf 8:255–260, 1991) as a generalization of the Von Neumann–Morgenstern stable set.
PubDate: 2022-10-17

• Binary mechanism for the allocation problem with single-dipped preferences

Abstract: Abstract In this study, we consider the problem of fairly allocating a fixed amount of a perfectly divisible resource among agents with single-dipped preferences. It is known that any efficient and strategy-proof rule violates several fairness requirements. We alternatively propose a simple and natural mechanism, in which each agent announces only whether he or she demands a resource and the resource is divided equally among the agents who demand it. We show that any Nash equilibrium allocation of our mechanism belongs to the equal-division core. In addition, we show that our mechanism is Cournot stable. In other words, from any message profile, any path of better-replies converges to a Nash equilibrium.
PubDate: 2022-10-11

• Does allowing private communication lead to less prosocial collective
choice'

Abstract: Abstract To investigate the effects of private communication on support for prosocial collective choices, we conduct a laboratory experiment in a public goods setting with a majority vote, manipulating whether participants can have private conversations before a public discussion. When private conversations are allowed, majority tyranny outcomes are more common and prosocial collective choices less common. In both communication treatments, participants start out proposing and voting for prosocial allocations and increase their support for majority tyranny allocations as the experiment progresses. Private communication therefore increases the prevalence of majority tyranny (but is not strictly necessary for it). The results demonstrate that the effects of private communication in multilateral bargaining extend to public goods settings, despite the contrasting finding in the latter that democratic institutions enhance prosocial outcomes.
PubDate: 2022-10-04

• Habit formation and the pareto-efficient provision of public goods

Abstract: Abstract This paper examines the implications of habit formation in private and public goods consumption for the Pareto-efficient provision of public goods, based on a two-period model with nonlinear taxation. Under weak leisure separability, and if the public good is a flow-variable such that the government directly decides on the level of the public good in each period, habit formation leads to a modification of the policy rule for public good provision if, and only if, the degrees of habituation differ for private and public good consumption. By contrast, if the public good supply is time-invariant, the presence of habit formation generally alters the policy rule for public good provision.
PubDate: 2022-10-01

• Electoral Institutions with impressionable voters

Abstract: Abstract We use a model of impressionable voters to study multi-candidate elections under different electoral rules. Instead of maximizing expected utility, voters cast their ballots based on impressions. We show that, under each rule, there is a monotone relationship between voter preferences and vote measures. The nature of this relationship, however, varies by electoral rule. Vote measures are biased upwards for socially preferred candidates under plurality rule, but biased downwards under negative plurality. There is no such bias under approval voting or Borda count. Voters always elect the socially preferred candidate in two-way races for any electoral rule. In multi-candidate elections, however, the ability to elect a Condorcet winner varies by rule. The results show that multi-candidate elections can perform well even if voters follow simple behavioral rules. The relative performance of specific electoral institutions, however, depends on the assumed behavioral model of voting.
PubDate: 2022-10-01

• The Burning Coalition Bargaining Model

Abstract: Abstract The paper presents a coalitional bargaining model, the Burning Coalition Bargaining Model, having a peculiar type of partial breakdown. In fact, in this model, the rejection of a proposal causes the possibility of the proposed coalition to vanish, rather than triggering the end of all negotiations or the exclusion of some players from the game, as already proposed in the literature. Under this type of partial breakdown and adopting a standard rejecter-proposes protocol, 0-normalized, 3-players games are examined for extreme values of the breakdown probability. When such probability is equal to one, efficiency is more difficult to obtain than in models adopting discounting and the first mover advantage is strongly diminished. Furthermore, when an efficient outcome is attained, the final distribution of payoffs reflects the strength of players in the game, with strength being represented by belonging to more valuable coalitions. The same feature is retained when considering a probability of breakdown approaching zero.
PubDate: 2022-10-01

• Round-robin tournaments with limited resources

Abstract: Abstract We propose a theoretical model of a round-robin tournament with limited resources motivated by the fact that in real-world sport round-robin tournaments, participating teams are sometimes forced to distribute their effort over multiple matches. We assume that participating teams have a limited amount of effort that must be distributed between all matches of the tournament. We model the outcome of each match as a first-price all-pay auction. The prizes are awarded according to the ranking at the end of the tournament, based on the number of wins. The tournament with three teams is solved. In the case of identical budgets and low first prize, we find two types of equilibria—‘effort-saving’ and ‘burning-out’—both leading to unequal payoffs; when the first prize is large, we find multiple families of equilibria with both equal and non-equal payoffs. In the case of non-identical budgets, we show that there exist equilibria where a team with a lower budget gets a higher payoff than a team with a larger budget.
PubDate: 2022-10-01

• Sharing rules for a common-pool resource in a lab experiment

Abstract: Abstract Natural resources such as water, for which the availability to users is random, are often shared according to predefined rules. What determines users’ choice of a sharing rule' To answer this question, we designed an experiment in which subjects: (1) vote on sharing rules; (2) choose the technology that transforms the resource into payoffs; and (3) respond to a survey on their adhesion to principles of fairness. We find that although subjects tend to vote for the sharing rule that is aligned with their self-interest, they become more egalitarian if they report their views on the fairness principles before voting. Furthermore, the adhesion to fairness principles affects the subjects’ votes not directly but rather indirectly through the choice of technology.
PubDate: 2022-10-01

• Endogenous timing in three-player Tullock contests

Abstract: Abstract We study a three-player Tullock contest in an endogenous-timing framework, focusing on the players’ decisions on timing of effort exertion. In this model, there are two points in time at which the players may choose their effort levels. The players decide independently and announce simultaneously when they each will expend their effort, and then each player chooses her effort level at the point in time which she announced. We find that, given moderate asymmetries among the players, each of the players announces the first point in time, and thus they all choose their effort levels simultaneously at the first point in time. This finding is in sharp contrast to a well-known result obtained from two-player asymmetric contests with endogenous timing.
PubDate: 2022-10-01

JournalTOCs
School of Mathematical and Computer Sciences
Heriot-Watt University
Edinburgh, EH14 4AS, UK
Email: journaltocs@hw.ac.uk
Tel: +00 44 (0)131 4513762