A meeting of a scientific seminar dedicated to the computational theory of collective choice.

We invite you to a scientific seminar on computational theory of social choice at the Higher School of Economics.

HSE Computational Social Choice Seminar

The seminar will be held on Thursday, March 12, 15:00-16:00 (Moscow time, GMT+3) online

Speaker: Pierre Bardier (Paris School of Economics)

“The probability of satisfying axioms: a non-binary perspective on economic design”

For problems of economic design, voting and social choice, this paper aims at bringing the axiomatic theory of collective decisions closer to practice by proposing a general notion of degree of satisfaction which expresses the probability with which a rule satisfies one or several axioms. From welfare economics to the theory of voting, the multitude of impossibility results, constitutes a significant obstacle to effectively guiding collective decision-making. I propose and characterize a unique criterion to evaluate and compare rules, in any aggregation problem, on the basis of two components. The first one reflects the likelihood with which a rule satisfies several axioms separately, but also, crucially, the likelihood with which it satisfies them jointly. Yet, the distinction between separated and joint satisfaction additionally requires to account for the desirability of combinations of axioms. Not only can a normative requirement be more valuable to the eye of a researcher, a policy maker, or a lay citizen, than another one, but there may be synergies: conditionally on the satisfaction of a given axiom, the satisfaction of another one may be more or less valued, so that these axioms may be complementary or substitutable.

 

The paper:https://arxiv.org/abs/2502.13850

 

Language: English

Online: https://us06web.zoom.us/j/83756218781?pwd=prbATQVTP1yWLhZuwi6eDnel6yFFa4.1

Meeting ID:  837 5621 8781
Passcode:  384596