Auctions and fair division games - a cross-country bidding experiment

This paper presents the results of experiments carried out in two countries, Bulgaria and Germany, with different allocation rules (first- vs. second-price - auction vs. fair division game). The data analysis of the sealed-bid, private value-contests compares the bid functions, some features of the bidding behavior as well as the efficiency rates and the price expectations in both countries. The main results obtained in Germany were replicated by the Bulgarian participants.¹     

Population monotonic rules for fair allocation problems

We consider the property of population monotonicity in the context of fair allocation problems in private good economies. It is already known that the property is compatible with the equal division lower bound. We show that if the equal division lower bound is replaced with no envy, the compatibility does not hold. We also show that the incompatibility persists even though no envy is weakened to no domination or -no domination. Hence, among the fairness criteria mentioned above, only the equal division lower bound is compatible with population monotonicity.This part of my dissertation thesis. I thank to my advisor William Thomson for many valuable comments. I also thank to Youngsub Chun and Yangkyu Byun for their comments. All remaining errors are, of course, mine.     

A fair division solution to the problem of redistricting

Redistricting is the political practice of dividing states into electoral districts of equal population in response to decennial census results to ensure equal representation in the legislative body. Where the boundaries are drawn can dramatically alter the number of districts a given political party can win. As a result, a political party which has control over the legislature, can (and does) manipulate the boundaries to win a larger number of districts, thus affecting the balance of power in the US House of Representatives. This work introduces a novel solution to the problem of fairly redistricting a state that is motivated by the ideas of fair division. Instead of trying to ensure fairness by restricting the shape of the possible maps or by assigning the power to draw the map to nonbiased entities, this solution ensures fairness by balancing competing interests against each other. Essentially, it is a simple interactive protocol that presents two parties with the opportunity to achieve their fair representation in a state (where the notion of fairness is rigorously defined) and as a result a balanced electoral map is created.     

Groves sealed bid auctions of heterogeneous objects with fair prices

We study the allocation of heterogeneous indivisible objects to agents whose valuations of the objects depend on what other objects they are obtained with. We apply the envyfree criterion to Groves sealed bid auctions, which are value maximizing and dominant strategy incentive compatible for this multi-object allocation problem. First we show that if valuations are unrestricted then there is no Groves auction which ensures that the allocation is always envyfree. We obtain a positive result, however, if the valuations of the objects are superadditive, and give a complete characterization of Groves prices that guarantee envyfreeness for superadditive valuations. Received: 25 April 2001/Accepted: 3 April 2002 I would like to thank Kim Border, Tom Palfrey, and especially John Ledyard for their comments. Special thanks are due to Katya Sherstyuk. Support from a Sloan Dissertation Fellowship is gratefully acknowledged.     

Migration disequilibrium and specific division rules

We examine the extent to which migration equilibria fail to exist in a global economy in which a specific division rule determines the allocation of a perfectly divisible, nondisposable resource among individuals with single-peaked preferences who reside in local economies. In particular, almost without exception, under the egalitarian, proportional, queuing, and uniform division rules, migration equilibria fail to exist for some sets of preferences. Received: 23 May 1995 / Accepted: 1 October 1996     

Asymmetrically fair rules for an indivisible good problem with a budget constraint

We study a particular restitution problem where there is an indivisible good (land or property) over which two agents have rights: the dispossessed agent and the owner. A third party, possibly the government, seeks to resolve the situation by assigning rights to one and compensate the other. There is also a maximum amount of money available for the compensation. We characterize a family of asymmetrically fair rules that are immune to strategic behavior, guarantee minimal welfare levels for the agents, and satisfy the budget constraint.     

A maximal domain of preferences for strategy-proof,efficient, and simple rules in the division problem

The division problem consists of allocating an amount M of a perfectly divisible good among a group of n agents. Sprumont (1991) showed that if agents have single-peaked preferences over their shares, the uniform rule is the unique strategy-proof, efficient, and anonymous rule. Ching and Serizawa (1998) extended this result by showing that the set of single-plateaued preferences is the largest domain, for all possible values of M, admitting a rule (the extended uniform rule) satisfying strategy-proofness, efficiency and symmetry. We identify, for each M and n, a maximal domain of preferences under which the extended uniform rule also satisfies the properties of strategy-proofness, efficiency, tops-onlyness, and continuity. These domains (called partially single-plateaued) are strictly larger than the set of single-plateaued preferences. However, their intersection, when M varies from zero to infinity, coincides with the set of single-plateaued preferences.An earlier version of this paper circulated under the title A maximal domain of preferences for tops-only rules in the division problem. We are grateful to an associate editor of this journal for comments that helped to improve the presentation of the paper and to Matt Jackson for suggesting us the interest of identifying a maximal domain of preferences for tops-only rules. We are also grateful to Dolors Berga, Flip Klijn, Howard Petith, and a referee for helpful comments. The work of Alejandro Neme is partially supported by Research Grant 319502 from the Universidad Nacional de San Luis. The work of Jordi Massó is partially supported by Research Grants BEC2002-02130 from the Spanish Ministerio de Ciencia y Tecnología and 2001SGR-00162 from the Generalitat de Catalunya, and by the Barcelona Economics Program of CREA from the Generalitat de Catalunya. The paper was partially written while Alejandro Neme was visiting the UAB unde r a sabbatical fellowship from the Generalitat de Catalunya.     

Voting games,indifference, and consistent sequential choice rules

We present four choice functions which characterize the stationary points of sequential search rules derived from a preference relation over outcomes. These functions are contrasted with others in the literature in terms of narrowness of choice as well as their ability to satisfy certain normative and consistency conditions, and it is shown how two of these sets arise as the set of equilibrium outcomes of a voting game under different tie-breaking assumptions.We would like to thank Nicholas Miller for introducing us and two anonymous referees for valuable comments and suggestions.     

Membership rules and stability of coalition structures in positive externality games

This paper compares the stability of coalition structures under six institutional settings of treaty formation in positive externality games. We argue that many economic problems belong to the class of positive externality games (i.e. outsiders benefit from the formation of coalitions) and hence our results can be applied to many situations. It is shown that it is easier to sustain agreements under exclusive than under open membership and the higher the “degree of consensus” necessary to form a coalition.     

Resource-monotonic solutions to the problem of fair division when preferences are single-peaked

We consider the problem of fairly allocating an infinitely divisible commodity among a group of agents with single-peaked preferences. We search for solutions satisfying resource-monotonicity, the requirement that all agents be affected in the same direction when the amount to divide changes. Although there are resource-monotonic selections from the Pareto solution, there are none satisfying the distributional requirements of no-envy or individual rationality from equal division. We then consider the weakening of resource-monotonicity obtained by allowing only changes in the amount to divide that do not reverse the direction of the inequality between the amount to divide and the sum of the preferred amounts. We show that there is essentially a unique selection from the solution that associates with each economy its set of envy-free and efficient allocations satisfying this property of one-sided resource-monotonicity: it is the uniform rule, a solution that has played a central role in previous analyses of the problem.     

Volunteering and the gender division of labour: A Franco-British comparison

Cross-national analyses of the gender division of labour usually focus on employment and domestic labour. This paper argues that formal and informal voluntary work should be included in such analyses. Using available secondary sources, the paper compares the gender division of voluntary work in Britain and France – two countries with well-documented differences and similarities concerning employment and domestic labour. The paper reveals that French women, with a higher commitment to the labour market and a slightly larger share of the burden of domestic labour, have a higher commitment to formal voluntary activity but engage less in informal volunteering than their British counterparts whereas French men, with shorter hours in employment and a slightly smaller contribution to domestic labour, undertake more formal and informal voluntary work than their British counterparts. In France, men consistently undertake more voluntary work than women whilst in Britain, there is a degree of gender equality in formal voluntary work but women undertake significantly more informal voluntary work than men. The paper explains the differences and similarities found by considering the role of the state and social policy, the question of ‘time availability’, and the question of what motivates individuals to undertake voluntary work.     

Voting rules and efficiency in one-dimensional bargaining games with endogenous protocol

We analyze a rent-seeking contest that determines the bargaining protocol in a one-dimensional bargaining game, where agents preferences over social outcomes are single-peaked. We relate the incentives of agents to make unproductive and costly efforts/investments to the quota rules that are required to implement agreements. When the contest assigns persistent recognition probabilities, we find that simple majority minimizes the total investments and, hence, inefficiency. In case that the contest recurs each period, multiple equilibria exist with the particularity that in each equilibrium only one agent controls the agenda of the bargaining process.     

Food practices and division of domestic labour. A comparison between British and Swedish households

This paper emanates from a problem with general reference to basic conditions of family life and food practices. More specifically it concerns the striving of preventive health care in persuading contemporary Western Europeans to change their attitudes to food in a health oriented direction. The question is: Do gender roles at home influence people's attitudes towards food? A survey of current sociological and ethnological research in Great britain and Sweden shows two partly different gender role patterns, one (the British) with obvious traits of role segregation and the other (the Swedish) comparatively more integrated. From these observations follows an analysis of how each pattern respectively affects food practices on a household level. One conclusion is that segregated roles seem to favour conservatism while equality oriented relations create prerequisites for changeability. The discussion comments on social and historical conditions generating differences in gender role patterns, with special emphasis on working class culture and peasant culture as important historical factors. The paper concludes by asserting that the conditions for political initiative aimed at increased equality at home are better today than ever before during the twentieth century. But to succeed these initiatives must primarily focus upon the male role and its relation to domestic work.     

A value for games with coalition structures

This paper presents an axiomatization of a value for games with coalition structures which is an alternative to the Owen Value. The motor of this new axiomatization is a consistency axiom based on an associated game, which is not a reduced game. The new value of an n-player unanimity game is the compound average of the new values of all the (n-1)-player unanimity games. The new value of a unanimity game allocates to bigger coalitions a larger share of the total wealth. Note that the Owen value allocates to all the coalitions the same share independently of their size.     

A characterization of strategy-proof voting rules for separable weak orderings

We consider the problem of choosing a subset of a finite set of indivisible objects (public projects, facilities, laws, etc.) studied by Barberà et al. (1991). Here we assume that agents preferences are separable weak orderings. Given such a preference, objects are partitioned into three types, goods, bads, and nulls. We focus on voting rules, which rely only on this partition rather than the full information of preferences. We characterize voting rules satisfying strategy-proofness (no one can ever be better off by lying about his preference) and null-independence (the decision on each object should not be dependent on the preference of an agent for whom the object is a null). We also show that serially dictatorial rules are the only voting rules satisfying efficiency as well as the above two axioms. We show that the separable domain is the unique maximal domain over which each rule in the first characterization, satisfying a certain fairness property, is strategy-proof. I am grateful to Professor William Thomson for helpful comments and suggestions. I also thank Professor John Duggan, Christopher Chambers, and seminar participants in Department of Economics, University of Rochester. I thank anonymous referees for their detailed comments and suggestions that helped me a great deal to develop the earlier version of this paper. All remaining errors are mine.     

A necessary and sufficient condition for stable matching rules to be strategy-proof

We study one-to-one matching problems and analyze conditions on preference domains that admit the existence of stable and strategy-proof rules. In this context, when a preference domain is unrestricted, it is known that no stable rule is strategy-proof. We introduce the notion of the no-detour condition, and show that under this condition, there is a stable and group strategy-proof rule. In addition, we show that when the men’s preference domain is unrestricted, the no-detour condition is also a necessary condition for the existence of stable and strategy-proof rules. As a result, under the assumption that the men’s preference domain is unrestricted, the following three statements are equivalent: (i) a preference domain satisfies the no-detour condition, (ii) there is a stable and group strategy-proof rule, (iii) there is a stable and strategy-proof rule.     

A review of Australian classification practices for commercial video games featuring simulated gambling

This paper reviews Australian classification practices for commercial video games that contain simulated gambling. In the last decade, over 100 video games featuring gambling simulations have been classified as suitable for commercial sale to youth in Australia, with 69 of these video games rated ‘PG’ for Parental Guidance Recommended (i.e. suitable for ages 8+years) and the remaining 33 rated ‘G’ for General (i.e. suitable for all ages). A review of the literature suggests that consumer advice and warnings related to video game material are often inconsistent and/or not adequately provided. A public health approach suggests that the presence of gambling content in video games may present risks to younger players unfamiliar with how gambling operates. It is argued that there is a need for further academic debate on social responsibility issues of early childhood and adolescent exposure to, and involvement in, simulated gambling activities available in interactive gaming technologies.