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2PM GMT (10AM Toronto/Montréal, 11AM Rio de Janeiro, 3PM London, 4PM Paris, 5PM Istanbul, 7:30PM New Delhi, 11PM Tokyo/Seoul)
Maria Polukarov (King's College London) "Alternative Perspectives on Candidate Control in Voting"
Host: Lirong Xia
Abstract. This talk integrates two complementary perspectives on candidate control in voting. Traditionally, candidate control is studied as a harmful intervention: an external agent changes the candidate set to manipulate the winner, and the main question is whether such control is computationally easy or hard. We broaden this view by asking when candidate control can also be beneficial, not just for election outcomes but for participation and representation. In particular, we connect affirmative-action style interventions that can improve representativeness with models in which candidate entry changes who turns out to vote.
The first part of the talk introduces endogenous turnout, where each candidate attracts a subset of voters, so adding or deleting candidates affects both vote shares and electorate size. The second part studies a dynamic, spatial view of elections in which voters and candidates evolve over time, and candidate control can be evaluated not only by winner selection but also by its effect on substantive representation in fragmented electorates. Together, these perspectives show that candidate control is not a single phenomenon: depending on the setting, it may be a manipulation tool, a turnout mechanism, or a way to repair structural inequities. The common theme is understanding when procedural interventions harm collective decisions, when they help, and how the computational complexity of those choices shapes what is feasible in practice.
2PM GMT (10AM Toronto/Montréal, 11AM Rio de Janeiro, 3PM London, 4PM Zürich, 5PM Istanbul, 7:30PM New Delhi, 11PM Tokyo/Seoul)
Barton Lee (ETH Zürich) "When Growth leads to Zero-sum Conflict"
Host: Danilo Coelho
Abstract. Individuals often face a tradeoff between cooperating to expand a collective good (the “pie”) or competing to expand their share of it. We study this tradeoff as a dynamic public goods problem where the pie’s size and its shares can only be gradually changed and contributions to the pie are irreversible. In the unique subgame perfect equilibrium, growth of pie occurs but halts at an inefficiently low level, at which point perpetual conflict over the shares ensues. Growth ultimately leads to a prisoner’s dilemma stage game, but cooperation is unsustainable for any discount factor. We also explore the dynamics of growth and conflict and empirical relevance of our results.
(Joint work with Álvaro Delgado-Vega)