Condorcet Solutions in Frugal Models of Budget Allocation

Speaker
Clemens Puppe, Karlsruhe Institute of Technology
Date
26/04/2022 - 13:00 - 11:30Add To Calendar 2022-04-26 11:30:00 2022-04-26 13:00:00 Condorcet Solutions in Frugal Models of Budget Allocation We study a voting model with incomplete information in which the evaluation of social welfare must be based on information about agents’ top choices plus general qualitative background conditions on preferences. The former is elicited individually, while the latter is not. We apply this ‘frugal aggregation’ model to multi-dimensional budget allocation problems, relying on the specific assumptions of convexity and separability of preferences. We propose a solution concept of ex-ante Condorcet winners which flexibly incorporates the epistemic assumptions of particular frugal aggregation models. We show that for the case of convex preferences, the ex-ante Condorcet approach naturally leads to a refinement of the Tukey median. By contrast, in the case of separably convex preferences, the same approach leads to different solution, the 1-median, i.e. the minimization of the sum of the L1-distances to the agents’ tops. An algorithmic characterization renders the latter solution analytically tractable and efficiently computable.  (joint work with Klaus Nehring) Links to the full paper, the seminar recording, and the slides. Zoom (https://us02web.zoom.us/j/82536086839) and it will be broadcasted in the Economics lounge room אוניברסיטת בר-אילן - Department of Economics Economics.Dept@mail.biu.ac.il Asia/Jerusalem public
Place
Zoom (https://us02web.zoom.us/j/82536086839) and it will be broadcasted in the Economics lounge room
Affiliation
https://micro.econ.kit.edu/english/puppe.php
Abstract

We study a voting model with incomplete information in which the evaluation of social welfare must be based on information about agents’ top choices plus general qualitative background conditions on preferences. The former is elicited individually, while the latter is not. We apply this ‘frugal aggregation’ model to multi-dimensional budget allocation problems, relying on the specific assumptions of convexity and separability of preferences.

We propose a solution concept of ex-ante Condorcet winners which flexibly incorporates the epistemic assumptions of particular frugal aggregation models. We show that for the case of convex preferences, the ex-ante Condorcet approach naturally leads to a refinement of the Tukey median. By contrast, in the case of separably convex preferences, the same approach leads to different solution, the 1-median, i.e. the minimization of the sum of the L1-distances to the agents’ tops. An algorithmic characterization renders the latter solution analytically tractable and efficiently computable. 

(joint work with Klaus Nehring)

Links to the full paper, the seminar recording, and the slides.

Last Updated Date : 28/04/2022