新农村建设中公共物品偏好显示机制分析

新农村建设的核心问题是公共物品的供给问题。根据公共选择经济学派的理论,通过设计一种偏好显示机制,反映农村社会对公共物品的偏好,是解决农村公共物品最优供给问题的有效途径。现有的相对多数票、序数投票法、二二比较法等机制存在着信号显示不全、结果的发散性等问题。根据现有机制的分析,设计的多阶段集体否决投票法,有着较好的激励机制、信号显示完整、收敛性等特点,不失为一种可供选择的农村公共物品偏好显示机制。     

Preference Intensities and Majority Decisions Based on Difference of Support Between Alternatives

Simple majority is one of the most used decision rules in practice. However, under this decision rule, an alternative can defeat another one with very poor support. For this reason, other decision rules have been considered in the literature, such as qualified and special majorities as well as other majorities based on difference of votes. In this paper we generalize the latter mentioned voting systems by considering individual intensities of preference, and we provide some axiomatic characterizations.     

股东大会表决机制的嬗变及法理分析

在公司发展史上,适应不同的历史背景和法理基础,股东大会表决机制经历了从"一致同意"到"多数决",从"人头多数决"到"资本多数决",从"绝对资本多数决"到"相对资本多数决"的更迭过程。从股东大会表决机制的嬗变可以看出现代公司法的指导原则和发展趋势是向更大的平等性迈进,在坚持资本多数决原则的基础上日益注重平衡多数股东和少数股东间的利益,强调对少数股东的公平保护。     

Resolving Group Choice Paradoxes Using Probabilistic and Fuzzy Concepts

The standard assumption of modern social choice theory is that the individuals are endowed with complete and transitive preference relations over the decision alternatives. A large number of incompatibility results has been achieved regarding aggregation of these kinds of preferences. Yet, most voting procedures make no use of this information. Instead they essentially cut down the information provided by the voters. In this paper we deal with some alternatives to the complete and transitive voter preference assumption. Particular attention is paid to imprecise notions: probabilistic and fuzzy preference relations. Rather than establishing new impossibility results, our focus is in resolving various voting paradoxes using imprecise preference concepts.     

A support to consensus reaching in group decision

This paper outlines an interactive aid that facilitates consensus in cooperative decision making or policy recommendation. The approach draws on a previous result which shows that a multiple ranking can be derived from a single relational preference system. In other words, the preferences expressed individually by each member of a group may lead to either unanimous or a majority consensus, with or without concession from individual members.     

Media Mergers with Preference Externalities and Their Implications for Content Diversity,Consumer Welfare,and Policy

One of the primary concerns regarding media mergers involves their potential adverse effect on content/viewpoint diversity. This paper presents a formal treatment of the influence that within-group consumer preference externalities over media content have on a media outlet’s incentive to engage in product repositioning both before and after merging with another media outlet. We first present a model of consumer behavior under preference externalities and derive aggregate consumer expenditure functions for media output. It is shown that even assuming the merged entity sets a uniform price and content mix across market areas, the relative access to some minority (majority) group subscribers will increase (decrease) post-merger (and vice versa). We derive sufficient conditions under which the merged entity will in fact have an incentive to homogenize its post-merger price/content mix. And while the post-merger repositioning effects arguably suggest the consumer welfare implications of such mergers are ambiguous a priori, it is posited that the observed idiosyncratic preferences for media content among demographic groups may translate into significant losses to consumer welfare in some instances and may also adversely affect some individuals’ participation in civil affairs, such as voting. Finally, the relation of the model to previous empirical work on media mergers and diversity, and the potential for non-traditional policy interventions to offset the competitive harms of such transactions, are also discussed.     

Influence Allocation Methods in Group Decision Support Systems

Influence allocation processes are voting and opinion aggregating methods that allow members to distribute some or all of their decision making influence to others in the group in order to exploit not only the group's knowledge of the alternatives, but its knowledge of itself. Only with the common use of group decision support systems (GDSS) has their use become practical. In this paper we reconsider SPAN, an influence allocation process introduced by MacKinnon (1966a). Experimental comparison shows SPAN to be significantly better at selecting a correct option from a set of options than two common voting methods. An alternative influence allocation process that we call RCON (Rational Consensus), is based on a weighting method proposed by DeGroot (1974) and has been explicated as a normative standard for combining opinion by Lehrer and Wagner (1981). The judgmental inputs to SPAN would appear to be logically related to those for RCON. Submitting the SPAN inputs from the experiment, transformed in this logical way, to the RCON process results in somewhat better performance than with SPAN. However, evidence indicated that the two methods are conceptually and psychologically sufficiently different that an experimental comparison is needed between them.     

Voting Paradoxes and MCDM

Many, if not most, problems in group decision making can be translated into MCDM problems by substituting criteria for voters. Yet, there has been very little discussion about the implications of various types of voting paradoxes to MCDM. The classic voting paradoxes, viz. Borda's and Condorcet's, have obvious implications for certain MCDM situations. The latter implies that the notion of the best alternative, given a set of criteria and information about the ordinal ranking of the alternatives on those criteria, can be essentially arbitrary. The former, in turn, demonstrates a particularly clear case of conflict between reasonable intuitions. Completely unexplored are implications of compound majority paradoxes to MCDM. The paper deals with Ostrogorski's and Anscombe's paradoxes which result from non-bisymmetry and non-associativity of the majority relation. Moreover, we shall discuss the implications of paradox of multiple elections which is a situation where the result of multiple-item election may be a policy alternative that nobody voted for.     

Cross-task validity comparisons of stated preference choice models

This paper uses a statistical test developed by Horowitz and Louviere (1993) to compare the parameters of several logit models estimated from different preference measures. This test shows that all models produce estimates of attribute effects that are equivalent up to a rescaling. Furthermore, models based on stated next purchase, the outcome of a purchase experiment, and a binary analysis of consideration set data produce equivalent estimates of all parameters.     

A Quiet Revolution in Corporate Governance: An Examination of Voluntary Best Practice Governance Policies

This paper investigates the effects of several voluntary best practice corporate governance principles on firm performance and firm risk. Using a sample of Standard & Poor's/Toronto Stock Exchange Composite Index firms from 2003–2010, I show that firms with individual director election and detailed disclosure of voting results in director elections have a higher firm value or performance. Firms with independent chairman, majority voting, and detailed disclosure of voting results in director elections have lower idiosyncratic risk. In addition, the results from the panel regression show that detailed disclosure of voting results in director election leads to lower systematic and total risk.     

On the Closeness Aspect of Three Voting Rules: Borda – Copeland – Maximin

This paper provides a comparison of three voting rules, the Borda rule, the Copeland rule and the maximin rule. Our analysis based on the rankings derived from those voting rules will shed new light on existing comparisons based on “closeness” between the three voting rules under investigation. In particular it will be shown that both, the rankings derived from the Borda rule and the maximin rule and the rankings derived from the Copeland rule and the maximin rule, will be exactly the opposite for certain preference profiles.     

累积投票制的博弈性及其解决方法

累积投票制度因具备一个完整的博弈构成要件 (即 ,博弈方、策略空间和支付结构 ) ,具有博弈性。累积投票博弈性的特点有 :累积投票主要是非合作博弈、也可能是合作博弈 ,累积投票是静态博弈、有限策略博弈和非零和博弈。为了减少累积投票的博弈效果 ,鼓励合作博弈 ,可以采取立法手段、分类董事会、缩小董事会规模和购买表决权无效原则等方法。     

Computer-assisted constrained approval voting

Approval voting, proposed independently by several analysts in the 1970s, is a voting system in which voters can vote for as many candidates as they like in multicandidate elections. Recently, S.J. Brams modified this system, introducing so-called constrained approval voting. It is designed for a professional association to ensure equitable representation of different interests. In his new system approval voting is combined with the constraints on the number of persons that can be elected from different categories of members. In the present paper the problem of constrained approval voting is formulated (following the work of R.F. Potthoff) as an integer programming problem. Some computational aspects of this problem are discussed. The paper presents a numerical example illustrating a possibility to apply the discussed voting procedure in the election of members of the Committee for Organization and Management Sciences of the Polish Academy of Sciences.     

A Voting Mechanism Designed for Talent Shows in Mass Media: Weighted Preference of Group Decision Makers in Social Networks Using Fuzzy Measures and Choquet Integral

As the development of social networks tends to shape people’s view about choices, decision making theories are challenged by numerous unprecedented difficulties, from both the theories and practice. One hot topic is how to design a voting mechanism for talent shows in mass media that not only attracts public attention but also reflects an objective and fair principle. Weighted voting, where the voting power of a representative is proportional to the population in his or her district, has been widely adopted in legislative selections and talent show competitions. However, weighted voting system may cause disenfranchisement of some representatives and reduce the entertainment and interest of talent shows because of the ignorance of complex interactions among the representatives. In this paper, possible interactions among representatives are analyzed by investigating the associated social networks and subsequently some fuzzy measures are utilized to quantify these interactions. Specifically, the weights determination model is adopted in this situation for defining fuzzy measures to avoid the disenfranchisement, and a multiple-group hierarchy decision model is developed to solve social network group decision making problems where the Choquet integral is employed to reduce the impact from synergy and redundancy between representatives. Moreover, a voting mechanism for talent shows in mass media is provided. Finally, an illustrative example, and a close look at the current algorithmic issues and future trends from different angles are provided.

     

Post hoc ergo propter hoc: methodological limits of performance-oriented studies in CSR

This paper enquires into the possibility of establishing a causal link between social performance (SP) and financial performance (FP) in corporate social responsibility (CSR). It shows that this endeavour is limited by several biasing factors (such as time horizons, sample choices and the tools chosen to measure SP and FP) and faces the logical fallacy post hoc ergo propter hoc (after this, therefore because of this), which indicates that a sequence of events does not necessarily establish a causal link. The paper contributes to the methodological literature in CSR currently focused on empirical tests aiming to discern the linkages between SP and FP, both by emphasising the interest in interpreting and justifying SP and by suggesting a redirection of empirical efforts towards the understanding of entrepreneurial preference for a specific type of SP.     

An Election Method to Improve Policy Representation of a Parliament

Since voters are often swayed more by the charisma, personal image and communication skills of the individual candidates standing for election than by the parties’ political manifestos, they may cast votes that are actually in opposition to their policy preferences. Such a type of behavior, known as ‘irrational voting’, results in the election of representatives who do not correspond exactly to the voters’ own views. The example of the 2013 German Bundestag shows that the method used to elect it results in inadequate policy representation. The analysis of these elections (see, Tangian, 2016) led to an alternative method which is discussed in this paper. In the alternative method the voters’ policy preferences are taken into account explicitly by means of embedded referenda, testing the matching of the candidates’ policy profiles with that of the electorate. Then the parties are indexed, not with respect to the percentage of votes received but with respect to their representativeness indices of popularity (the average percentage of the population represented) and universality (frequency in representing a majority), as introduced in the previous paper mentioned. The method is then hypothetically applied to redistribute the Bundestag seats among the party factions, producing a considerable gain in the representativeness of the Bundestag. Finally, we discuss mixed election procedures combining the elements of traditional voting schemes with the proposed method.     

The Third Vote Experiment: Enhancing Policy Representation of a Student Parliament

Since voters are often swayed more by the personal image of politicians than by party manifestos, they may cast votes that are in opposition to their policy preferences. This results in the election of representatives who do not correspond exactly to the voters’ own views. An alternative voting procedure to avoid this type of election failure is prompted by the approach implemented in internet voting advice applications, like the German Wahl-O-Mat, which asks the user a number of questions on topical policy issues; the computer program, drawing on all the parties’ answers, finds for the user the best-matching party, the second-best-matching party, etc. Under the proposed alternative election method, the voters cast no direct votes. Rather, they are asked about their preferences on the policy issues as declared in the party manifestos (Introduce nationwide minimum wage? Yes/No; Introduce a speed limit on the motorways? Yes/No, etc.), which reveals the balance of public opinion on each issue. These embedded referenda measure the degree to which the parties’ policies match the preferences of the electorate. The parliament seats are then distributed among the parties in proportion to their indices of popularity (the average percentage of the population represented on all the issues) and universality (frequency in representing a majority). This paper reports on an experimental application of this method during the election of the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology Student Parliament on July 4–8, 2016. The experiment shows that the alternative election method can increase the representativeness of the Student Parliament. We also discuss some traits and bottlenecks of the method that should be taken into account when preparing elections.     

Trade and the distribution of human capital

We develop a two-country, two-sector model of trade where the only difference between the two countries is their distribution of human capital endowments. We show that even if the two countries have identical aggregate human capital endowments the pattern of trade depends on the properties of the two human capital distributions. We also show that the two distributions of endowments also completely determine the effects of trade on income inequality. We also look at a simple majority voting model. It turns out autarky and free trade with and without compensation may be the voting outcome.     

Trade and the distribution of human capital

We develop a two-country, two-sector model of trade where the only difference between the two countries is their distribution of human capital endowments. We show that even if the two countries have identical aggregate human capital endowments the pattern of trade depends on the properties of the two human capital distributions. We also show that the two distributions of endowments also completely determine the effects of trade on income inequality. We also look at a simple majority voting model. It turns out autarky and free trade with and without compensation may be the voting outcome.     

The Majority Rule with Arbitrators

The majority rule with arbitrators is the (relative) majority rule supplemented by the indifference-breaking rule according to which, in case of social indifference under the majority rule, the social preference coincides with the preference of the non-indifferent individual ranked higher in an exogenous ranking of the individuals. For the case of preferences over two alternatives, a characterization of this rule is suggested that relies on axioms of efficiency, inter-anonymity, intra-anonymity, parity, and reducibility. It is also provided a characterization of the set of rules consisting of the majority rule and the majority rule with arbitrators.