Iterative Delegations in Liquid Democracy with Restricted Preferences

In this paper, we study liquid democracy, a collective decision making paradigm which lies between direct and representative democracy. One main feature of liquid democracy is that voters can delegate their votes in a transitive manner so that: A delegates to B and B delegates to C leads to A delegates to C. Unfortunately, this process may not converge as there may not even exist a stable state (also called equilibrium). In this paper, we investigate the stability of the delegation process in liquid democracy when voters have restricted types of preference on the agent representing them (e.g., single-peaked preferences). We show that various natural structures of preferences guarantee the existence of an equilibrium and we obtain both tractability and hardness results for the problem of computing several equilibria with some desirable properties

Power and truth in liquid democracy

This thesis studies a young voting method called liquid democracy, in which voters can freely choose to delegate their vote to other voters or directly use their own vote and accrual delegation votes. We mainly address two problems in liquid democracy. The first problem is that when voters decide whether to vote or delegate and to whom they delegate their votes, what level of voting power each voter has. The voting power of a voter denotes the probability that this voter can change the final voting result. We found that when voters care about their voting power, they do not delegate their votes easily. The second problem is whether it is beneficial for the quality of the voting result if voters are allowed to split their votes and delegate them to multiple delegatees, that is, the so-called weighted delegation. Our results show that in terms of the quality of the voting result, weighted delegation makes it possible to optimize the voting result quality, and it is never worse than the traditional single delegatee liquid democracy

Clarifying and defining the concept of liquid democracy

Liquid Democracy (LD) is a recent phenomenon that could radically affect our understanding of democracy. Yet, there remains significant semantic confusion surrounding this concept, and researchers in the social sciences, as well as in political theory, currently lack a general definition that is broadly accepted as a standard reference. Therefore, this article addresses the following question: What is LD and how can we best define it? Following a classical, semantic approach to concept formation in the tradition of Giovanni Sartori and John Gerring, the article advances a new, minimal definition: LD is a decision-making scheme characterized by liquidity—that is the systemic and flexible mix of direct and representative democracy—and essentially based on the principles of voluntary delegation and proxy voting. This definition can serve as a starting point from which further theoretical and normative studies of LD could be conducted in the future. Liquid Democracy (LD) ist ein neues Phänomen, welches unser Verständnis von Demokratie grundlegend verändern könnte. Dennoch herrscht nach wie vor erhebliche semantische Unklarheit in Bezug auf dieses Konzept, und den Forschern in den Sozialwissenschaften wie auch in der politischen Theorie fehlt derzeit eine allgemeine Definition, die als Standardreferenz weithin akzeptiert wird. Dieser Artikel befasst sich daher mit der folgenden Forschungsfrage: Was ist LD und wie können wir sie am besten definieren? In Anlehnung an einen klassischen, semantischen Ansatz zur Begriffsbildung in der Tradition von Giovanni Sartori und John Gerring wird eine neue, minimale Definition vorgeschlagen: LD ist ein Entscheidungsfindungssystem, welches sich durch Liquidität auszeichnet, d. h. durch eine systemische und flexible Mischung aus direkter und repräsentativer Demokratie, und welches im Wesentlichen auf den Prinzipien der freiwilligen Delegation und der Stimmrechtsvertretung beruht. Diese Definition kann als Ausgangspunkt für weitere Studien über LD in der Zukunft dienen

Causality relations between foreign direct investment and portfolio investment volatility

Following the liberalization of financial markets, Goldstein and Razin (2006) show that there is an information based trade-off between foreign direct investment and foreign portfolio investment, our paper examines the causality relations between foreign direct investment and volatility of foreign portfolio investment. Utilizing monthly and quarterly data set of Czech Republic, Poland, Russia and Turkey, volatility of portfolio investments, which indicated evidence of ARCH effects for all four countries, have been estimated by best fitting GARCH (p,q) models. Further, potential causality has been examined by Granger (1969), Sims (1972) and Toda and Yamamoto (1995) test methods. Results indicated that, for Russia and Turkey foreign direct investment has a significant cause on portfolio investment volatility. However for Czech Republic and Poland, there is no such significant relationship has been found. Finally further investigation of a possible structural break due to EU membership could not provide such evidence for Czech Republic and Poland in related variables.Foreign Direct Investment, Foreign Portfolio Investment, Eastern Europe, Causality

Arrest and flow of colloidal glasses

I review recent progress in understanding the arrest and flow behaviour of colloidal glasses, based on mode coupling theory (MCT) and related approaches. MCT has had notable recent successes in predicting the re-entrant arrest behaviour of colloids with short range attractions. Developments based upon it offer important steps towards calculating, from rational foundations in statistical mechanics, nonlinear flow parameters such as the yield stress of a colloidal glass. An important open question is why MCT works so well.Comment: Invited Plenary Contribution Th2002 Paris, to appear in Annales Henri Poincar

The Political Economy of Exchange Rate Policies in Argentina

This paper identifies three periods in Argentine exchange rate policy, corresponding with different development strategies and political coalitions. The first, periodic adjustments to a pegged rate until the mid-1970s, accompanied an Import Substitution Industrialization approach and a redistribution of income from agrarian to industrial production during an era of strong labor union influence. A second period, from the mid-1970s, marked by accelerated devaluations, represented efforts by both military and civilian governments to meet the demands of their respective constituencies while maintaining capital flows from abroad; these efforts culminated in hyperinflation. A third period, beginning in the early 1990s, was notable for exchange rate stability, based on the Convertibility Plan, as a broad consensus emerged that the exchange rate should be used for containing inflation rather than engaging in redistribution among domestic interest groups. The authors conclude that additional innovations in Argentina`s monetary and exchange rate policies may eventually be necessary.