Coalitional stability and efficiency of partitions in matching problems

?zkal-Sanver (Theory Decis 59:193–205, 2005) studies stability and efficiency of partitions of agents in two-sided matching markets in which agents can form partitions by individual moves only, and a matching rule determines the matching in each coalition in a partition. In this study, we present the relationship between stability and efficiency of partitions that is analyzed for several matching rules and under various membership property rights codes, now allowing coalitional moves.     

Quantity competition, endogenous motives and behavioral heterogeneity

The article shows that strategic quantity competition can be characterized by behavioral heterogeneity, once competing firms are allowed in a pre-market stage to optimally choose the behavioral rule they will follow in their strategic choice of quantities. In particular, partitions of the population of identical firms in which some of them are profit maximizers while others follow an alternative criterion, turn out to be deviation-proof equilibria both in simultaneous and sequential game structures. Our findings that in a strategic framework heterogeneous behavioral rules may be consistent with individual incentives is a first attempt to provide a game-theoretic microfoundation of heterogeneity.     

Identifying endogenous fiscal policy rules for macroeconomic models

The forecast and policy simulations based on macroeconomic models are used in many instances as an important input into policy decision-making. In this paper, we present a model-based method for identifying fiscal closure rules in stochastic macroeconomic models. The methodology is based on the stability analysis of the model at hand, with an endogenous derivation of a reaction on the part of the fiscal authority to state variables in the model. The rule achieves the dual aim of imposing solvency on the fiscal sector and generating a state-contingent dynamic adjustment in a framework consistent with the properties of the model. The approach differs from the standard practice of deriving fiscal closure rules in large macroeconomic forecasting models in both its derivation and implementation. An example of the endogenously derived rule, including some illustrative results, is provided using a small calibrated macro model     

On the stability of a triplet of scoring rules

When choosing a voting rule to make subsequent decisions, the members of a committee may wish this rule to be self-selected when it is the object of a choice among a menu of different possible voting rules. Such concepts have recently been explored in Social Choice theory, and a menu of voting rule is said to be stable if it contains at least one self-selective voting rule at each profile of preferences on voting rules. We consider in this article the menu constituted by the three well-known scoring rules {Borda, Plurality, and Antiplurality}. Under the Impartial Culture assumption, which proposes an a priori model to estimate the likelihood of the profiles, we will derive a probability for the stability of this triplet of voting rules.     

A Characterization for the Spherical Scoring Rule

Strictly proper scoring rules have been studied widely in statistical decision theory and recently in experimental economics because of their ability to encourage assessors to honestly provide their true subjective probabilities. In this article, we study the spherical scoring rule by analytically examining some of its properties and providing some new geometric interpretations for this rule. Moreover, we state a theorem which provides an axiomatic characterization for the spherical scoring rule. The objective of this analysis is to provide a better understanding of one of the most commonly available scoring rules, which could aid decision makers in the selection of an appropriate tool for evaluating and assessing probabilistic forecasts.      

Metapreferences and the reasons for stability in social choice: Thoughts on broadening and clarifying the debate

The standard model of collective choice looks at aggregation procedures which take individual preferences as existing for a specified set of alternatives. In this paper we propose that actors also have preferences for rules of choice or characteristics of choice processes (e.g., the perceived fairness of procedures or the popularity of outcomes) rather than simply for alternatives (outcomes) themselves. We argue that the positing of the existence of meta-preferences can illuminate a number of areas of choice theory. Here we focus on one such area: the problem of “too much” stability in majority rule decision making - a stability which belies the standard theoretical results on the generic instability of majority rule processes. We also show that discussion of the prevalence of stability in collective decision making needs to be clarified because there are at least six distinct types of stability which are sometimes confounded in the literature.     

Preference aggregation and statistical estimation

This paper deals with various connections that are found to exist between statistical estimation methods for decision-making and rules of group choice in the social choice area. Initially the aggregation of individual opinions is formulated as a pattern recognition problem; firstly it is shown that individual preferences lead to a natural representation in terms of binary patterns. Then we proceed to show how the search for a group preference pattern can be conducted by classifying the input preference patterns into various pattern classes and using the resulting classification boundaries to define the area of mutual agreement over some of the available alternatives. This leads to a decision-theoretic problem which consists in defining a decision rule (for classification) that is least likely to lead to misrecognition of arbitrary preference patterns. A maximum likelihood solution is obtained and compared with some well-known rules of group decision-making. Other solutions are also possible, on the basis of different optimality criteria, and their social choice interpretation is suggested. Finally, a method using Coleman's linear model for attributes is applied to yield group decision rules by feature weighting of election issues.     

Conditions for the optimality of simple majority decisions in pairwise choice situations

Recently it has been proved in a number of studies, that, under a proper set of assumptions, the optimal group decision rule in pairwise choice situations is a weighted majority rule, with weights that are proportional to the logarithms of the decision makers' odds of choosing the correct alternative.The purpose of the present note is to specify the necessary and sufficient conditions for this rule to coincide with the simple majority rule, and with restricted simple majority rules (which are defined as rules of simple majority, based on some subset of the most competent group members). These conditions are formulated in terms of inequalities between the group members' weights, thereby permitting easy verification of the optimality of the above mentioned rules.     

Partial information on decisional competences and the desirability of the expert rule in uncertain dichotomous choice situations

The paper analyzes the expert resolution problem by employing extended versions of the uncertain dichotomous choice model. The main purpose of this study is to illustrate how the analysis of optimal decision rules can be carried out while dispensing with the common restrictive assumption of full information regarding individual decisional competences. In contrast to most previous studies in this field we here evaluate the expert rule under alternative assumptions regarding the available partial information on judgmental competences rather than compare it in an ad hoc manner to some common alternative rules, such as simple majority rule. A fuller optimality analysis allowing the evaluation of all relevant decision rules, and not merely the expert rule, is attempted for a five-member panel of experts assuming a uniform distribution of individual competences. For three-member groups the optimality issue is resolved by assuming no information on individual competences and interpreting the expert rule as an even-chance lottery on skills.     

Social organizations and matching theory

We generalize the Gale-Shapley matching theory to the formation of social units consisting of more than two individuals and each individual having more than one role.We show how social preferences and social structure could conflict with freedom. In the absence of such a conflict, we define stability and show that this could conflict with social preferences and social structure. Next, we define Rawlsian justice in case of stability and show how social preferences and social structure can conflict with justice. Thus, it is the social preferences and social-structure which decide whether our concepts of freedom, stability, and justice are achievable or not.     

On the inference rules in legal logic

推论规则是逻辑学研究的核心内容。法律逻辑是一门应用逻辑,但它并不是形式逻辑的推论规则在法律领域中的简单运用,而是形式逻辑的推论规则加上法律领域中的特殊推论规则的结果。因此,法律逻辑中的推论规则与形式逻辑中的推论规则相比,既有共性的一面,又有个性的一面。其共性表现为形式逻辑的基本推论规则是构成法律逻辑中的推论规则必不可少的组成部分,其个性表现为法律逻辑中有着与形式逻辑中的推论规则所不具有的特殊推论规则——证明责任规则。     

方法论视阈下稳定是硬任务解析——兼论社会管理中的法德兼治

稳定是一个国家兴旺发达的先决条件,社会稳定是当代世界和平发展、共兴同荣的重大课题,如何实现社会的和谐稳定是各国政府必须面对和解决的重大理论和实践问题。本文从方法论视角,对我国的社会稳定问题进行了理性思考,诠释了"稳定是硬任务"的科学论断,提出构建法德兼治的二元体制,保证法治与德治的顺利融合与和合施行并实现良性互动,形成完整的社会规范系统和调控手段系统,是实现社会稳定的根本途径。     

Comparison of the Polar Decision Rules for Various Types of Distributions

We focus on the dichotomous choice model, which goes back as far as Condorcet (1785; Essai sur l'application de l'analyse a la probabilité des décisions rendues a la pluralité des voix, Paris). A group of experts is required to select one of two alternatives, of which exactly one is regarded as correct. The alternatives may be related to a wide variety of areas. A decision rule translates the individual opinions of the members into a group decision. A decision rule is optimal if it maximizes the probability of the group to make a correct choice. In this paper we assume the correctness probabilities of the experts to be independent random variables, selected from some given distribution. Moreover, the ranking of the members in the team is (at least partly) known. Thus, one can follow rules based on this ranking. The polar different rules are the expert and the majority rules. The probabilities of the two polar rules being optimal were compared in a series of papers. The main purpose of this paper is to outline the results, providing exact formulas or estimates for these probabilities. We consider a variety of distributions and show that for all of these distributions the asymptotic behaviour of the probabilities of the two polar rules follows the same patterns.     

Rules Trump Desires in Preschoolers’ Predictions of Group Behavior

The objective of this article is to investigate the way children weigh conventional rules against desires when considering how a group will behave. To do so, two experiments involving a prediction task in which desires were pitted against conventional rules were presented to three‐ to five‐year‐old children. In Experiment 1, four scenarios were established as classroom scenes in which either one protagonist or three protagonists had a desire that went against an explicit conventional rule. In the individual control condition, the choices linked to the rules were at chance whereas, in the group condition, the participants predicted that all the protagonists would end up following the rule. Given that both conditions in Experiment 1 implied four rule followers in the design, Experiment 2 staged not three but seven potential rule transgressors to see whether the desire of the majority might undermine the rule. Results showed no majority effect: participants expected protagonists to act counter to their desire and to follow the rule. Such results suggest that children as young as three‐year‐old favor rules over desires when they have to predict the behavior of a group, whether it be the majority or not. Possible implications of these intriguing findings are discussed.     

制度经济学视角下的规则意识探析

制度安排是经济增长的关键因素,但必须依靠人们的自觉遵守才能发挥其效用。规则意识就是规则的意识化,在认同和接受规则的基础上意识主体形成一种自觉遵守规则的行为。规则意识的内涵首先是指关于规则的知识,其次是自觉遵守规则的愿望,再次外化为遵守规则的习惯。规则意识的经济功能主要表现在它是制度功能实现的基础、减少制度执行成本与有利于制度本义的准确理解。规则意识的形成过程是规则通过人们的心理活动内化为意识的过程,外在表现为自我实施的行为。在我国社会转型与体制转轨时期,培养和增强社会公众规则意识、发挥制度效用,要营造良好的制度环境,转变制度变迁方式,逐步扩大制度诱致性变迁的范围。     

Perspectives on a Pair of Envelopes

The two envelopes problem has generated a significant number of publications (I have benefitted from reading many of them, only some of which I cite; see the epilogue for a historical note). Part of my purpose here is to provide a review of previous results (with somewhat simpler demonstrations). In addition, I hope to clear up what I see as some misconceptions concerning the problem. Within a countably additive probability framework, the problem illustrates a breakdown of dominance with respect to infinite partitions in circumstances of infinite expected utility. Within a probability framework that is only finitely additive, there are failures of dominance with respect to infinite partitions in circumstances of bounded utility with finitely many consequences (see the epilogue).     

Between‐ and within‐person predictors of children’s information management following rule violations

The purpose of this study was to better understand both why some children disclose more about their misbehavior to their parents than do other children, as well as why a child discloses to parents about misbehavior in some situations but not in others. Analyses test parental warmth, children's beliefs regarding the legitimacy of parental authority and their own obligation to disclose misbehavior, and parent's responses to children's disclosure of disagreement with parents’ rules and children's misbehavior as predictors of both between‐person and within‐person variations in disclosing and revealing forms of information management. Parent‐child dyads (n = 218) were interviewed during the summers following the child's 5th (M age = 11.9 years) and 6th grade school years. Feeling obligated to disclose rule violations and believing that parents have legitimate authority to impose rules across more topics explained why some children reveal more and conceal less from parents than do other children. Children were more likely to conceal information about the specific topics for which they felt less obligated to disclose rule violations and following rule violations in areas in which their parents previously punished rule violations.     

Order relations among efficient decision rules

The paper introduces the concept of polar decision rules and establishes that majority rules are polar rules. We identify second best rules and penultimate rules in cases that majority rules are optimal or the most inferior, respectively. We especially specify the almost expert rule and the almost majority rule as the secondary rules of the expert and majority rules, respectively.     

村庄规则之治何以实现?——基于华北里村的考察

村庄规则之治是国家政权建设的要求,对基层治理具有重大意义.基于华北里村的考察表明:里村以村庄社会结构为基础,通过化私为公机制建立了村庄公共性,并且通过利益连带机制形成了维持村庄公共性的硬约束,使得村规民约成为硬规范,最终实现了村庄规则之治.村庄规则之治的关键在于村庄能够形成公共性,通过发挥村民自治的民主治理功能,逐步提高村庄治理的规范化、制度化水平.需要进一步理解规则之治,探索规则之治的有效实现方式.     

A short step between democracy and dictatorship

When preferences are defined over two alternatives and societies are variable, the group formed by the relative majority rule, the unanimity rule, the dictatorial rules, and the strongly dictatorial rules is characterized in terms of five axioms: unanimity, reducibility, substitutability, exchangeability, and parity. This result is used to provide characterizations of each of these rules by postulating separating axioms, that is, an axiom and its negation. Such axioms identify traits specifically differentiating a type of rule from the other types. For instance, majority differs from strong dictatorship in the existence of a society for which collective indifference should be a less likely outcome than the strict preference of one alternative over the other. As a second example, the difference between majority and strong dictatorship can be traced back to the requirement that the likelihood of collective indifference diminishes with the size of society.