Rhetoric in legislative bargaining with asymmetric information

We analyze a three-player legislative bargaining game over an ideological and a distributive decision. Legislators are privately informed about their ideological intensities, i.e., the weight placed on the ideological decision relative to the weight placed on the distributive decision. Communication takes place before a proposal is offered and majority rule voting determines the outcome. We show that it is not possible for all legislators to communicate informatively. In particular, the legislator who is ideologically more distant from the proposer cannot communicate informatively, but the closer legislator may communicate whether he would \compromise "or flight" on ideology. Surprisingly, the proposer may be worse off when bargaining with two legislators (under majority rule) than with one (who has veto power), because competition between the legislators may result in less information conveyed in equilibrium. Despite separable preferences, the proposer is always better off making proposals for the two dimensions together

Strategic Voting over Strategic Proposals, Second Version

Prior research on “strategic voting” has reached the conclusion that unanimity rule is uniquely bad: it results in destruction of information, and hence makes voters worse off. We show that this conclusion depends critically on the assumption that the issue being voted on is exogenous, i.e., independent of the voting rule used. We depart from the existing literature by endogenizing the proposal that is put to a vote, and establish that under many circumstances unanimity rule makes voters better off. Moreover, in some cases unanimity rule also makes the proposing individual better off even when he has diametrically opposing preferences. In this case, unanimity is the Pareto dominant voting rule. Voters prefer unanimity rule because it induces the proposing individual to make a more attractive proposal. The proposing individual prefers unanimity rule because the acceptance probabilities for moderate proposals are higher.Strategic voting; agenda setting; multilateral bargaining

Rhetoric in Legislative Bargaining with Asymmetric Information

In this paper we analyze a legislative bargaining game in which parties privately informed about their preferences bargain over an ideological and a distributive decision. Communication takes place before a proposal is offered and majority rule voting determines the outcome. When the private information pertains to the ideological intensities but the ideological positions are publicly known, it may not be possible to have informative communication from the legislator who is ideologically distant from the proposer, but the more moderate legislator can communicate whether he would "compromise" or fight" on ideology. If instead the private information pertains to the ideological positions, then all parties may convey whether they will "cooperate," "compromise," or fight" on ideology. When the uncertainty is about ideological intensity, the proposer is always better on making proposals for the two dimensions together despite separable preferences, but when the uncertainty is about ideological positions, bundling can result in informational loss which hurts the proposer.

Majority Rule in a Stochastic Model of Bargaining

In this paper we consider multilateral stochastic bargaining models with general agreement rules. For n-player games where in each period a player is randomly selected to allocate a stochastic level of surplus and qNONCOOPERATIVE BARGAINING; VOTING RULES; STOCHASTIC GAMES

Uniqueness of Stationary Equilibrium Payoffs in Coalitional Bargaining

We study a model of sequential bargaining in which, in each period before an agreement is reached, the proposer’s identity (and whether there is a proposer) are randomly determined; the proposer suggests a division of a pie of size one; each other agent either approves or rejects the proposal; and the proposal is implemented if the set of approving agents is a winning coalition for the proposer. The theory of the fixed point index is used to show that stationary equilibrium expected payoffs of this coalitional bargaining game are unique. This generalizes Eraslan (2002) insofar as: (a) there are no restrictions on the structure of sets of winning coalitions; (b) different proposers may have different sets of winning coalitions; (c) there may be a positive probability that no proposer is selected.

Bicameralism and Government Formation

In this paper we present a structural approach to the study of government formation in multi-party parliamentary democracies. The approach is based on the estimation of a stochastic bargaining model which we use to investigate the effects of specific institutional features of parliamentary democracy on the formation and stability of coalition governments. We then apply our methodology to estimate the effects of governmental bicameralism. Our main findings are that eliminating bicameralism does not affect government durability, but does have a significant effect on the composition of governments leading to smaller coalitions. These results are due to an equilibrium replacement effect: removing bicameralism affects the relative durability of coalitions of different sizes which in turn induces changes in the coalitions that are chosen in equilibrium.Political stability, Government formation, Government dissolution, Bicameralism, Comparative constitutional design

The Effects of Constitutions on Coalition Governments in Parliamentary Democracies

In this article we present an overview of our recent research on the effects of constitutions on coalition governments in parliamentary democracies. Our approach is based on the solution and estimation of a multilateral bargaining model which we use to investigate the consequences of constitutional features of parliamentary democracy for the formation and stability of coalition governments.Political Stability, Coalition Governments, Constitutional Design

A probabilistic model for competitive DNA binding modeling using ChIP-seq and MNase-seq data

Competitive and combinatorial DNA binding pattern of transcription factors and nucleosomes at genomic regulatory regions control the key cellular processes such as transcription, replication and chromatin packaging. Consequently, in order to reveal the gene expression regulatory mechanisms, it is critical that we understand how these DNA binding factors (DBFs) are organized in the cell under specific conditions. The quantitative models proposed for predicting the complex combinatorial binding pattern underlying gene expression generally use the DNA binding affinities and concentrations of the DNA binding factors. These models have been shown to work well under thermodynamic equilibrium conditions in lower organisms but when modeling the actual in vivo binding we have to consider the ATP-driven chromatin remodelers actively repositioning, reconfiguring or ejecting nucleosomes, the binding cooperativity among transcription factors and the environment of the cell with ATP-driven molecular components acting against thermal equilibrium. Moreover, the challenge of correctly determining DBF concentrations in the cell makes the application of these methods troublesome. In this study, we propose a probabilistic method to infer the competitive and combinatorial DNA occupancy of the factors at each position of an inspected region by the use of the ChIP-Seq and MNase-Seq high-throughput data which intrinsically reflect the effects of all of the factors related with DBF positioning. Our method is built upon the enriched read coverage profiles observed around the binding sites and explicitly includes the competition between DBFs. Experiments we have conducted with 47 DBFs suggest that incorporation of this competition into the model increases the precision of the binding site estimates

Japon Ders Araştırması: Türkiye’de İşler mi?

In all international comparison studies, Japanese students, who were at the eighth and seventh grades in Junior high school, performed very well in mathematics. Researchers in mathematics education believe that one of the key reasons for this impressive achievement is the process of lesson study practiced by the Japanese teachers. Thus, the purpose of this paper is to describe what the Japanese lesson study is and then to examine the procedure in terms of how it is planned and conducted by Japanese teachers. The last part of the paper discusses whether teachers in Turkey should work collaboratively within the lesson study model to improve student learning, and in doing so enhance their own teaching practice. Tüm uluslararası karşılaştırmalı çalışmalarda, ortaokul yedi ve sekizinci sınıfta okuyan Japon öğrenciler matematikte çok iyi bir performans göstermişlerdir. Matematik eğitimi araştırmacıları, bu önemli başarının en önemli sebeplerinden birinin, Japon öğretmenler tarafından uygulanan ders araştırması olduğuna inanmaktadırlar. Bu yüzden bu çalışmanın amacı Japon ders araştırmasını açıklamak, Japon öğretmenler tarafından nasıl planlanıp uygulandığını incelemek ve sonunda Türkiye’deki öğretmenlerin bu model içinde öğrenci öğrenimini artırmak ve kendi öğretim uygulamalarını geliştirmek için ortaklaşa çalışıp çalışamayacaklarını tartışmaktır.