Strategy-proofness on Euclidean spaces

 In this paper we characterize strategy-proof voting schemes on Euclidean spaces. A voting scheme is strategy-proof whenever it is optimal for every agent to report his best alternative. Here the individual preferences underlying these best choices are separable and quadratic. It turns out that a voting scheme is strategy-proof if and only if (α) its range is a closed Cartesian subset of Euclidean space, (β) the outcomes are at a minimal distance to the outcome under a specific coordinatewise veto voting scheme, and (γ) it satisfies some monotonicity properties. Neither continuity nor decomposability is implied by strategy-proofness, but these are satisfied if we additionally impose Pareto-optimality or unanimity. Received: 18 October 1993/Accepted: 2 February 1996     

Non-governmental organisations and philanthropy in Latin America: An overview

This article provides an overview of the emerging non-profit or voluntary sector in Latin America. Specifically, the article addresses the differences and communalities these non-profit organisations have across the region. It concludes by emphasising the huge variety of roles and functions performed by non-profit organisations within and across countries, and their often ambigious position between the private and public realms.     

Exploratory planning in an electronics corporation

This paper describes the approach taken by a French-based company is forecasting the future. The author indicates the difference between the approach of his company and other methods, and illustrates a multifunctional approach to inventing futures.     

Assessment of the Effectiveness of Radon Screening Programs in Reducing Lung Cancer Mortality

The present study was aimed at assessing the health consequences of the presence of radon in Quebec homes and the possible impact of various screening programs on lung cancer mortality. Lung cancer risk due to this radioactive gas was estimated according to the cancer risk model developed by the Sixth Committee on Biological Effects of Ionizing Radiations. Objective data on residential radon exposure, population mobility, and tobacco use in the study population were integrated into a Monte‐Carlo‐type model. Participation rates to radon screening programs were estimated from published data. According to the model used, approximately 10% of deaths due to lung cancer are attributable to residential radon exposure on a yearly basis in Quebec. In the long term, the promotion of a universal screening program would prevent less than one death/year on a province‐wide scale (0.8 case; IC 99%: –3.6 to 5.2 cases/year), for an overall reduction of 0.19% in radon‐related mortality. Reductions in mortality due to radon by (1) the implementation of a targeted screening program in the region with the highest concentrations, (2) the promotion of screening on a local basis with financial support, or (3) the realization of systematic investigations in primary and secondary schools would increase to 1%, 14%, and 16.4%, respectively, in the each of the populations targeted by these scenarios. Other than the battle against tobacco use, radon screening in public buildings thus currently appears as the most promising screening policy for reducing radon‐related lung cancer.     

Time with Children: Do Fathers and Mothers Replace Each Other When One Parent is Unemployed?

This article aims to study the substitution of parental time between the mother and the father. Taking the “experience” of unemployment as a release from the time constraint, we analyse time transfers between partners in such a situation. A bivariate Tobit model is applied on the French time-use data. It shows that parents quite rarely substitute the time devoted to children between each other, except for child transportation and childcare. Parents do not want to relinquish their parental activities, a fact which reflects their desire to contribute to the children’s education, and the contribution of parental time to the balance of power between spouses. Exchanges remain asymmetric: non-employed fathers release less their partner from parental tasks than unemployed mothers do, which reflects the weight of gender social norms.     

Passage a l'age adulte et mobilite spatiale

Starting with longitudinal data on two cohorts of women living in the Alpes-Maritimes in 1982 (a sample of 1,500 women in total) we try to establish the role of the spatial distribution of opportunities at a number of key stages in the life cycle: marriage, birth of first child, making professional use of qualifications, confrontation of a situation of professional risk and professional mobility during the years immediately following the completion of studies. The underlying hypothesis is that control of social location often depends on the control of spatial location.     

Can preferences for catastrophe avoidance reconcile social discounting with intergenerational equity?

A social welfare function treating all generations equally is derived from a set of axioms that allow for preferences for catastrophe avoidance or risk equity. Implications for the case where there is a risk of world extinction are studied. We show that substantial time discounting can arise from the planner’s taste for catastrophe avoidance, even if the probability of the world ending is infinitesimally small. We wish to thank Marc Fleurbaey, Thibault Gajdos, two anonymous referees and an associate editor for many valuable comments.     

Le nom et le corps. Personnalisation et collectivisation du travail chez les ingénieurs des Ponts et Chaussées autour de 1800

A tension between strong individualization and a holistic conception of activities characterizes most of the French state's major administrative corps. By concentrating on the civil engineering corps (Ponts et Chaussées) during the early 19th century, we can see how this tension was resolved. When the Ourcq Canal was to be built, a conflict during the Ponts et Chaussées Assembly, which was responsible for examining plans for public works and making decisions about them, brought to light two contradictory rationales: incarnation and delegation, two ways of relating the individual and collective aspects of civil engineering during the drawing up of plans and their examination. These two rationales, which come into conflict in controversial situations, are normally combined in a “moral economy” — the civilities that enable this corps to relate the individualistic aspirations of the engineer in charge of a project with the collective dimensions of supervision and integration in a whole. In conclusion, the relations between design and execution, between activity and passivity, are examined in order to show how similar the administrative corps’ tense relation with the state is to the individual engineer's relation with his corps.     

Regularities and irregularities in a random 0,1 sequence

A few properties of the random 0,1 sequences are studied. These properties can be utilized to test the randomness of a 0,1 sequence produced by a computer (random generator). This test seems to be appropriate for discovering the periodicity (or the length of the period) of a pseudorandom sequence. A possible application of the presented results in regression analysis is also discussed.