A high court has to decide whether a law is constitutional, un- constitutional, or interpretable. The voting system is runoff. Runoff voting systems can be interpreted both, as social choice functions or as mechanisms. It is known that, for universal domains of preferences, runoff voting systems...

We analyze the problem of choosing the w contestants who will win a competition within a group of n w competitors when all jurors commonly observe who the w best contestants are, but they may be biased. We study conditions on the configuration of the jury so that it is possible to induce the...

We analyze the problem of a jury choosing the winner from a set of agents when the identity of the deserving winner is common knowledge amongst the jurors but each juror is biased in favor of one di¤erent agent. We propose a simple and natural mechanism that implements the socially optimal rule...

We examine the incentives of an interest group to provide a political decision-maker with policy-relevant information and to exert pressure on her. Both activities are costly but may induce the lobby's preferred policy. Our paper provides an integrated analysis of both lobbying activities and...

The chosen tournament format has a fundamental impact on the popularity and success of a sport. Efficiency of a format describes how well it can reproduce the real but hidden power ranking of the participants. We compare the efficiency of the formats of two individual sports that share similar...

The chosen tournament format has a fundamental impact on the popularity and success of a sport. Efficiency of a format describes how well it can reproduce the real but hidden power ranking of the participants. We compare the efficiency of the formats of two individual sports that share similar...

We study the problem of a society choosing a subset of new members from a finite set of candidates (as in Barber?Sonnenschein, and Zhou, 1991). However, we explicitly consider the possibility that initial members of the society (founders) may want to leave it if they do not like the resulting...

Using the 2004 income survey of the Hungarian Central Statistical Office we consider the targeting of two types of unemployment-related benefits: a) unemployment insurance and re-training benefits and b) the unemloyment assistance (UA). The evidence suggests that unemployment-related benefits...

Sorting into public sector jobs may be motivated not only by the available income but also by other aspects, such as stronger demand for security or for social usefulness. The demand for larger job security - beside other factors - can be the consequence of family circumstances. We have...

Using the 2004 income survey of the Hungarian Central Statistical Office we consider the targeting of two types of unemployment-related benefits: a) unemployment insurance and re-training benefits and b) the unemloyment assistance (UA). The evidence suggests that unemployment-related benefits...