Cooperation and Social Choice: How Foresight Can Induce Fairness

Author: Penn, Elizabeth Maggie

Year: 2003

Degree: Dissertation (Ph.D.)

Advisors: McKelvey, Richard D; Alvarez, R. Michael

Committee Members: Katz, Jonathan N.; Palfrey, Thomas R.; Border, Kim C.; Jackson, Matthew O.; Alvarez, R. Michael

Option: Social Science

DOI: 10.7907/MC1S-J874

Abstract

I present three models of dynamic agenda formation and policy selection, and demonstrate that in each, outcomes emerge which are in keeping with those predicted by cooperative solution concepts such as the von Neumann-Morgenstern stable set and the core. These outcomes are a consequence of players "thinking ahead," or conditioning how they bargain on the notion that policies selected today should stand up to tomorrow's agenda. Players are induced into taking the payoffs of others into account when voting over and proposing policies, not because of a behavioral assumption such as altruism or inequality aversion, but because they know that the behavior of others in large part determines which policies are enacted in the future. In this sense, fairness is induced through the foresight of the players involved.

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