Any sufficiently rich, non-dictatorial rule system is manipulable. Not some such systems — all of them. The theorem guarantees that there exists some situation in which some agent can do better by acting contrary to the system’s intended purpose. Posts under this tag are about finding those situations, usually in places the rule designers didn’t think to look.
Hi again! The question I’m about to pose is one that, I’m reliably informed, clears rooms at cocktail parties. But I think it sits at the foundation of why institutions are so hard to reform — and why the people who try to reform them so often end up making things worse. That’s for next … Read more
The Democratic and Republican Parties each use a weighted voting system to choose their presidential nominees. This only matters when no candidate has a majority of the delegates, and the details are complicated because the weight a particular candidate has is actually a number of (possibly independent) delegates. Leaving those details to the side, let’s consider how much … Read more
FOX News just announced the 10 candidates who will participate in the first primetime Republican presidential primary debate on August 6, 2015. The top 10 were decided by these procedures. Given that FOX is arguably playing a huge role in the free-for-all-for-the-GOP’s-Soul that is that race for the 2016 GOP presidential nomination, it is important to consider whether, and to what … Read more
The rise of mega-donors has been an important storyline in the unfolding drama of the 2016 presidential election (for example, see here). The presence of these donors in the political game (or at least their visibility) is partially the result of the Supreme Court’s decision in Citizens United. But more interesting is whether the rise of these mega-donors has caused the … Read more
Vaccination, both in terms of its social good and the role of government in securing that social good while respecting individual liberty, has been a hot topic lately. In fact, it’s gone viral. (HAHAHAHA. Sorry.) In this short post, I link the debate about vaccination, liberty, and social welfare, with the work of Amartya Sen, a preeminent … Read more
The recent events in Montana have sparked a broad debate about the ethics of field experiments (I’ve written once and twice about it, and other recent posts include this letter from Dan Carpenter, this Upshot post by Derek Willis, and this Monkey Cage post by Dan Drezner). I wanted to continue a point that I … Read more
For whatever reason, I’m on a “data is complicated kick.” So, this story is one of many today discussing the gender gap in wages in ‘Merica. In a nutshell, President Obama pointed out “that women make, on average, only 77 cents for every dollar that a man earns.” Critics (most notably the American Enterprise Institute) … Read more
The Daily Kos has a piece authored by “War on Error” that linked to my piece today on H.Res. 368. I want to correct a misinterpretation in that piece. The author states that Chris Van Hollen, a Democrat, tried to end the Government Shutdown with a Discharge Petition on October 12, 2013 This isn’t correct. Van Hollen … Read more
In a little noticed procedural move on October 1st, the House of Representatives “entered in to the stage of disagreement” with the Senate with respect to H.J.Res. 59, the “clean” continuing resolution (CR) that, as currently amended by the Senate, would reopen the government at the sequestered levels.[1] Specifically, H.Res. 368 does two things. The … Read more
[Edit 10/5/13. Note: When I wrote this, I had not yet read this piece in the Washington Post, which refers to this bill. This doesn’t change the basic math of the post and, indeed, makes its points arguably even more tangible.] A few people (fewer than I would have expected) have mentioned the possibility of … Read more