Econ 309  Collective Choice

Link to slides

Notes on Government Failure

Lecture notes for Collective Choice and Voting

For interest on voting:

• • Hotelling Model of Location (Video)

  • Downs Model of the Median Voter (MRU Video)

  • Tyler Cowen on Downs's Median Voter Theorem (New York Times, February 6, 2010)

  • Why does the US have only two major parties?  Duverger's Law!

  • "Rational Choice Theory and the Paradox of Not Voting", Timothy Feddersen (Winter 2004) The Journal of Economic Perspectives

  • What's the probability of being the median voter in a presidential election?  

  • Voting fraud MAKES NO SENSE!  (Slate, October 26, 2010)

  • How do professions differ in terms of political orientation?  (And in case you didn't know, professors are commies)  (Ideological Geography, February 19, 2010)

For interest on Rawls:

• • Nobel Prize winner Edmund Phelps on John Rawls:  Wall Street Journal Editorial

  • Steve Landsburg critiques John Rawls (Slate, 1999)

For fun:  

• • Much political coverage in the press is just foolish noise (Slate, June 4, 2010)

  • Efficient voting, Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal

  • "I'm just a Bill"   (School House Rock)

  • "I'm an Amendment to Be"  (Simpsons take on School House Rock)

  • Homer Simpson voting

  • Kent Brockman on collective choice

  • Some famous American spoiler candidates

  • Who is the median voter?  The Daily Show's John Oliver's analysis.

  • Undecided voters can determine the outcome of an election (SNL, 2012)

  • Pivotal voter models of Obama and Congress

  • Dictatorship generally is a bad thing.

  • Median voter:  Worst case scenario (Kevin Costner!)

  • Mathematician, author, voting theorist, perv.  The life of the man known as "Lewis Carroll."