Binary Voting with Delegable Proxy: An Analysis of Liquid Democracy

The paper provides an analysis of the voting method known as delegable proxy voting, or liquid democracy. The analysis first positions liquid democracy within the theory of binary aggregation. It then focuses on two issues of the system: the occurrence of delegation cycles; and the effect of delegations on individual rationality when voting on logically interdependent propositions. It finally points to proposals on how the system may be modified in order to address the above issues

Logics for modelling collective attitudes

We introduce a number of logics to reason about collective propositional attitudes that are defined by means of the majority rule. It is well known that majoritarian aggregation is subject to irrationality, as the results in social choice theory and judgment aggregation show. The proposed logics for modelling collective attitudes are based on a substructural propositional logic that allows for circumventing inconsistent outcomes. Individual and collective propositional attitudes, such as beliefs, desires, obligations, are then modelled by means of minimal modalities to ensure a number of basic principles. In this way, a viable consistent modelling of collective attitudes is obtained

Perfect Competition

In his 1987 entry on ‘Perfect Competition’ in The New Palgrave, the author reviewed the question of the perfectness of perfect competition, and gave four alternative formalisations rooted in the so-called Arrow-Debreu-Mckenzie model. That entry is now updated for the second edition to include work done on the subject during the last twenty years. A fresh assessment of this literature is offered, one that emphasises the independence assumption whereby individual agents are not related except through the price system. And it highlights a ‘linguistic turn’ whereby Hayek’s two fundamental papers on ‘division of knowledge’ are seen to have devastating consequences for this research programme.Allocation of Resources; Perfect Competition; Exchange Economy

Perfect Competition

In his 1987 entry on ‘Perfect Competition’ in The New Palgrave, the author reviewed the question of the perfectness of perfect competition, and gave four alternative formalisations rooted in the so-called Arrow-Debreu-Mckenzie model. That entry is now updated for the second edition to include work done on the subject during the last twenty years. A fresh assessment of this literature is offered, one that emphasises the independence assumption whereby individual agents are not related except through the price system. And it highlights a ‘linguistic turn’ whereby Hayek’s two fundamental papers on ‘division of knowledge’ are seen to have devastating consequences for this research programmeAllocation of Resources, Perfect Competition, Exchange Economy