LECTURE NOTES ON MECHANISM DESIGN, POLITICAL THEORY, SOCIAL CHOICE AND VOTING

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1、LECTURENOTESONMECHANISMDESIGN,POLITICALTHEORY,SOCIALCHOICEANDVOTINGMichelLeBretonInstituteforAdvancedStudy,WuhanUniversityNovember200411IntroductionThecoursewillconsistof11lectures.Thetopicofeachlectureaswellasthelistofrecom-mendedandsuggestedreadingsat

2、tachedtoeachofthemappearsbelow.Tostimulateyourinterestforthesetheoreticalconsiderations,Ihavealsoaddedalistofpreliminaryreadings:strictlyspeaking,noneofthesereadingsisnecessaryforthecoursebuttheyillustratethepracticalrelevanceoftheconceptsandideaswhichw

3、illbepresented.Themainobjectiveofthiscourseistotoguidethestudentthroughthemorerecentdevelopmentsofsocialchoice,votingandpoliticaltheory.Thebasicbuildingblocksofthefieldandthemainclassicalresultswillbepresented.AccordingtoKelly(1988)”Socialchoicetheoryist

4、hestudyofsystemsandinstitutionsformakingcollectivechoices,choicesthataffectagroupofpeople......Foronething,socialchoicetheoryhasaverypracticalsideinaidingselectionofaprocedureformakingchoicesbypoliticalorsocialorganizations.......Butitspotentiallymostimp

5、ortantsideisinallowingustomakerealprogressinasweringsomeoftheoldestquestionsinpoliticalphilosophy”.Theseconddimensionisoftenreferredtoasthenormativepointofview:itconsistsinasystematicaxiomaticexplorationofthemechanismssatisfyingoneorseveralpropertiestha

6、tareconsideredasbeeingdesirable.Thesepropertiescoverefficiencyandfairnessconsider-ationsbutalsoincludeconsistencyrequirements.Inthistradition,thebehavioralresponseoftheactorsinvolvedinthecollectivechoiceissueaswellastheexactnatureoftheinsti-tutionsandrule

7、simplementingthemechanimaretypicallyneglected.AspointedoutbyAusten-SmithandBanks(1999)”Thisfamilyofmodelsexaminethepossibilitythatindi-vidualpreferencesaredirectlyaggregatedintoacollective,orsocialpreferencewhich,asinthetheoryofindividualdesision-making

8、,isthenmaximizedtoyieldasetofbestalterna-tives....Onemissingpieceofthedirectaggregationstoryistheappropriatemethodbywhichtheaggregationofindividual’spreferencesintosocialpreferencesismade....Itisimportanttoemhasizethatdirectaggre