Top Monotonicity: A Common Root for Single Peakedness, Single Crossing and the Median Voter Result

When the members of a voting body exhibit single peaked preferences, majority winners exist. Moreover, the median(s) of the preferred alternatives of voters is (are) indeed the majority (Condorcet) winner(s). This important result of Duncan Black (1958) has been crucial in the development of public economics and political economy, even if it only provides a sufficient condition. Yet, there are many examples in the literature of environments where voting equilibria exist and alternative versions of the median voter results are satisfied while single peakedness does not hold. Some of them correspond to instances where other relevant conditions, apparently not connected with single eakedness, are satisfied. For example preferences may satisfy the single-crossing property (Mirrlees, 1971, Gans and Smart, 1996, and Milgrom and Shannon, 1994), intermediateness (Grandmont, 1978) or order restriction (Rothstein, 1990). Still other interesting cases of existence of voting equilibria do not fall in any of these categories. We present a new and weak domain restriction which encompasses all the above mentioned ones, llows for new cases, still guarantees the existence of Condorcet winners and preserves a version of the median voter result. We illustrate how this new condition, that we call top monotonicity, arises naturally in different economic contexts.Single peaked, single crossing and intermediate preferences, majority (Condorcet) winners

Single-dipped preferences

We characterize the set of all individual and group strategy-proof rules on the domain of all single-dipped preferences on a line. For rules defined on this domain, and on several of its subdomains, we explore the implications of these strategy-proofness requirements on the maximum size of the rules' range. We show that when all single-dipped preferences are admissible, the range must contain two alternatives at most. But this bound changes as we consider different subclasses of single-dipped preferences: we provide examples of subdomains admitting strategy-proof rules with larger ranges. We establish exact bounds on the maximal size of strategy-proof functions on each of these domains, and prove that the relationship between the sizes of the subdomains and those of the ranges of strategy-proof functions on them need not be monotonic. Our results exhibit a sharp contrast between the structure of strategy-proof rules defined on subdomains of single-dipped preferences and those defined on subsets of single-peaked ones.strategy-proof, group strategy-proof, binary range rules, single-dipped

Individual versus group strategy-proofness: when do they coincide?

A social choice function is group strategy-proof on a domain if no group of agents can manipulate its final outcome to their own benefit by declaring false preferences on that domain. Group strategy-proofness is a very attractive requirement of incentive compatibility. But in many cases it is hard or impossible to find nontrivial social choice functions satisfying even the weakest condition of individual strategy-proofness. However, there are a number of economically significant domains where interesting rules satisfying individual strategy-proofness can be defined, and for some of them, all these rules turn out to also satisfy the stronger requirement of group strategy-proofness. This is the case, for example, when preferences are single-peaked or single-dipped. In other cases, this equivalence does not hold. We provide sufficient conditions defining domains of preferences guaranteeing that individual and group strategy-proofness are equivalent for all rules defined on theStrategy-proofness, Group strategy-proofness, k-size strategy-proofness, Sequential inclusion, Single-peaked preferences, Single-dipped preferences, Separable preferences.

Two Necessary Conditions for Strategy-Proofness: on What Domains are they also Sufficient?

A social choice function may or may not satisfy a desirable property depending on its domain of definition. For the same reason, different conditions may be equivalent for functions defined on some domains, while different in other cases. Understanding the role of domains is therefore a crucial issue in mechanism design. We illustrate this point by analyzing the role of different conditions that are always related, but not always equivalent to strategy-proofness. We define two very natural conditions that are necessary for strategy-proofness: monotonicity and reshuffling invariance. We remark that they are not always sufficient. Then, we identify a domain condition, called intertwinedness, that ensures the equivalence between our two conditions and that of strategy-proofness. We prove that some important domains are intertwined: those of single-peaked preferences, both with public and private goods, and also those arising in simple models of house allocation. We prove that other necessary conditions for strategy-proofness also become equivalent to ours when applied to functions defined on intertwined domains, even if they are not equivalent in general. We also study the relationship between our domain restrictions and others that appear in the literature, proving that we are indeed introducing a novel proposal.strategy-proofness, reshuffling invariance, monotonicity, intertwined domains

Group strategy-proof social choice functions with binary ranges and arbitrary domains: characterization results

We define different concepts of group strategy-proofness for social choice functions. We discuss the connections between the defined concepts under different assumptions on their domains of definition. We characterize the social choice functions that satisfy each one of them and whose ranges consist of two alternatives, in terms of two types of basic properties.Social choice functions, Binary ranges, group strategy-proofness, xy-monotonicity, xy-based rules.

Modelling tourism demand to Spain with machine learning techniques. The impact of forecast horizon on model selection

This study assesses the influence of the forecast horizon on the forecasting performance of several machine learning techniques. We compare the fo recastaccuracy of Support Vector Regression (SVR) to Neural Network (NN) models, using a linear model as a benchmark. We focus on international tourism demand to all seventeen regions of Spain. The SVR with a Gaussian radial basis function kernel outperforms the rest of the models for the longest forecast horizons. We also find that machine learning methods improve their forecasting accuracy with respect to linear models as forecast horizons increase. This results shows the suitability of SVR for medium and long term forecasting.Peer ReviewedPostprint (published version

Institutional diversity in the euro area: Any evidence of convergence?

In recent years differences in the institutional structure across euro area countries are becoming a cause of concern both for some individual Member States and for the functioning of the Economic and Monetary Union (EMU). From a global competitiveness perspective, we deal with the diversity in the institutional environment in the EMU. In particular, we assess whether the changes in the state of institutions provide convergence across euro area countries between 2006 and 2015. In addition, among the institutional indicators considered, we compute which institutional aspect contributes more to overall inequality in the state of institutions, as well as the contribution of each country to inequality considering as benchmark the country with the highest institutional quality. According to these country contributions, we highlight distinct patterns of convergence between ‘core’ and ‘periphery’ euro area countries and raise potential links between the institutional changes across euro area countries and both the differences in the intensity of the financial and economic crisis, and the policy responses in terms of fiscal consolidation applied by the respective national governments.Universidad de Málaga. Campus de Excelencia Internacional Andalucía Tech

Does economic freedom increase income inequality? Evidence from the EU countries

Over the past decades there have been considerable changes in policies and institutions in favor of economic freedom in the EU countries. This trend coincides with widespread increases in income inequality in numerous member states. To what extent does economic freedom encourage inequality? This paper examines the relationship between economic freedom and income inequality in the EU countries using panel data for the 2000s. The empirical evidence suggests that economic freedom seems to entail greater income inequality. However, not all areas of economic freedom affect income distribution similarly. While government size and regulation appear to be robustly associated with income inequality, legal system and property rights, sound money, and freedom to trade internationally seem not to be significantly related with income distribution in the European context.Universidad de Málaga. Campus de Excelencia Internacional Andalucía Tech

Assessment of the effect of the financial crisis on agents’ expectations through symbolic regression

Agents’ perceptions on the state of the economy can be affected during economic crises. Tendency surveys are the main source of agents’ expectations. The main objective of this study is to assess the impact of the 2008 financial crisis on agents’ expectations. With this aim, we evaluate the capacity of survey-based expectations to anticipate economic growth in the United States, Japan, Germany and the United Kingdom. We propose a symbolic regression (SR) via genetic programming approach to derive mathematical functional forms that link survey-based expectations to GDP growth. By combining the main SR-generated indicators, we generate estimates of the evolution of GDP. Finally, we analyse the effect of the crisis on the formation of expectations, and we find an improvement in the capacity of agents’ expectations to anticipate economic growth after the crisis in all countries except Germany.Peer ReviewedPostprint (author's final draft

Disseny d'una instal·lació elèctrica amb energies renovables, amb control Scada, per una explotació rural

El present projecte té com a objecte controlar, monitoritzar i gestionar a distancia un hivernacle per tal d’optimitzar el rendiment de la plantació que s’hi farà. L’hivernacle es distribuirà en quatre mòduls d’hivernacles, cada un d’ells controlats mitjançant unes estacions perifèriques. Per a aquest fi es crearà una xarxa Profinet juntament amb un cinquè PLC a mode de màster dels perifèrics i esclaus d’aquest. Hi haurà una connexió Profinet entre un PC, que monitoritzarà i recollirà totes les dades, i els PLC. Així, des de l’ordinador un operari podrà monitoritzar tot el sistema i rebre informació sobre les diferents variables en què estarà la plantació i, el més important, l’ordinador executarà les mesures adients per optimitzar-ne el rendiment. Serà una xarxa completament descentralitzada. El control podrà ser automatitzat per complet en haver definit aquestes variables de setpoint i advertiments o alarmes d’avís. És a dir, funcionarà totalment sol, si bé, sempre amb l’opció d’activar el que convingués en mode manual. L’hivernacle està situat en una finca rústica de la població de Santa Oliva, a la província de Tarragona. El cultiu que s’hi farà serà de tomàquet, la varietat de tomàquet Raf. El projecte s’estructura en tres grans parts diferenciades. La primera, i més genèrica, a mode d’introducció s’explicarà què es vol fer: es plantejarà en quina zona geogràfica es pretén desenvolupar l’explotació agrícola en un hivernacle. Es tractarà el tema del cultiu escollit i quines són les seves condicions per fer-lo més òptim. I, en darrer terme, s’estudiarà el funcionament general d’un hivernacle. A la segona part, es passa a l’aplicació pràctica de l’estudi que s’ha fet prèviament sobre un hivernacle. Es triaran els mitjans més adequats per desenvolupar una collita d’excel•lència; això és: escollir els sensors més adequats per controlar, per exemple, la temperatura o la humitat del sòl i se’n calcularan les línies. Posteriorment, es farà l’estudi de l’automatització mitjançant PLC’s. S’escollirà la marca de PLC a instal·lar i es faran els grafcets pel sistema de calefacció o de control de les pantalles tèrmiques, entre d’altres. Arribat aquest punt ja hauríem plantejat a la primera part què es pretén fer, després, com es farà, i llavors arribem a la tercera part del projecte en el qual es calcularà i desglossarà la inversió econòmica a realitzar; i es valorarà la viabilitat del projecte, la rendibilitat i l’amortització de la inversió