Social Choice, Optimal Inference and Figure Skating

Stephen Gordon and Michel Truchon

Cahiers de recherche from CIRPEE

Abstract: We approach the social choice problem as one of optimal statistical inference. If individual voters or judges observe the true order ona set of alternatives with error, then it is possible to use the set of individual rankings to make probability statements about the correct social order. Given the posterior distribution for orders and a suitably chosen loss function, an optimal order is one that minimises expected posterior loss. The paper develops a statistical model describing the behaviour of judges, and discusses Markov Chain Monte Carlo estimation. We also discuss criteria for choosing the appropriate loss functions. We apply our methods to a well-known problem: determining the correct ranking for figure skaters competing at the Olympic Games.

Keywords: Vote aggregation; ranking rules; figure skating; Bayesian methods; optimal inference; Markov Chain Monte Carlo (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C11 D71 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2006
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cdm, nep-dcm and nep-ecm
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

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Journal Article: Social choice, optimal inference and figure skating (2008)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:lvl:lacicr:0624

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