Masahide Horita

How to Order the Alternatives, Rules, and the Rules to Choose Rules: When the Endogenous Procedural Choice Regresses

A procedural choice problem occurs when there is no ex ante agreement on how to choose a decision rule nor an exogenous authority that is strong enough to single out a decision rule in a group. In this paper, we define the manner of procedural selection as a relation-valued procedural choice rule (PCR). Based on this definition, we then argue for some necessary conditions of a PCR. One of the main findings centers on the notion of consistency, which demands concordance between judged-better procedures and judged-better outcomes. Specifically, we found that the consistency principle and a modified version of the Pareto principle yield a simple impossibility result. We then show how the weakening of these conditions results to a degenerate PCR or the existence of a procedural veto. Finally, we show that the restriction of the preference domain to an extreme consequentialism can be seen as a positive result.

Plurality, Borda Count, or Anti-plurality: Regress Convergence Phenomenon in the Procedural Choice

We focus on voters’ preference profiles where at least two of the three selected voting rules (e.g. plurality, Borda count, and anti-plurality) produce different outcomes—thus, the voting body needs a procedural choice. While this situation evokes an infinite regress argument for the choice of rules to choose rules to choose rules to…and so on, we introduce a new concept named regress convergence, where every voting rule in the menu ultimately gives the same outcome within the finite steps of regress. We study the mechanism of this phenomenon in a large consequential society having a triplet of scoring rules. The results show that, in the menu of plurality, Borda count, and anti-plurality, the probability that the regress convergence happens is 98.2% under the Impartial Culture assumption and 98.8% under the Impartial Anonymous Culture assumption.

A strategic analysis of contract termination in public–private partnerships: implications from cases in sub-Saharan Africa

Abstract The paper examines empirically what contributes to the problem of contract termination in public–private partnerships (PPPs) from the perspectives of theories on contracts, transaction costs and industrial organizations. Based on a theoretical exploration of a model of the holdup and underinvestment problems, we identified the profit-sharing mechanism as the contract type that most predisposes a PPP to the inefficiencies that lead to contract termination. We then conducted an empirical examination of a data-set of PPP contracts in sub-Saharan Africa. Using rough sets theory and the logic of explanatory power, we found that contract type outweighs other factors, such as sector and nationality, in the explanation of contract termination.

Convergent Menus of Social Choice Rules

Suzuki and Horita [11] proposed the notion of convergence as a new solution for the procedural choice problem. Given a menu of feasible social choice rules (SCRs) \( F \) and a set of options \( X \), a preference profile \( L^{0} \) is said to (weakly) converge to \( C \,\subseteq\, X \) if every rule to choose the rule (or every rule to choose the rule to choose the rule, and so on) ultimately designates C under a consequential sequence of meta-preference profiles. Although its frequency is shown, for example, under a large society with F = {plurality, Borda, anti-plurality}, a certain failure (trivial deadlock) occurs with small probability. The objective of this article is to find a convergent menu (a menu that can “always” derive the convergence). The results show that (1) several menus of well-known SCRs, such as {Borda, Hare, Black}, are convergent and that (2) the menu {plurality, Borda, anti-plurality} and a certain class of scoring menus can be expanded so that they become convergent.