- Code:
- ECOK-263
- Target:
- Bachelor's students
- Organiser:
- University of Helsinki - Economics
- Instructor:
- Klaus Kultti
- Period:
- Period 4
- Format:
- Lecture
- Method:
- Contact teaching
- Venue:
- Economicum
- Enrollment:
In case of conflicting information consider the Sisu/Course/Moodle pages the primary source of information.
Aalto, Hanken and UH economics students can enroll through their home university’s SISU. Further instructions are available on the How to enroll? page, also for students from other universities.
If you would like to count the credits towards your degree, please check your curriculum or contact your supervisor or student services for guidance.
Course schedule in Sisu and Course page will be published in July
- To access the Moodle course area, use all the features and participate in the activities (assignments, discussions), you must have successfully registered for the course in Sisu and logged in with your UH user ID.
- For more information on how to activate your UH user ID and register for a Moodle course area, click here.
Content
This is provisional and may change especially towards the end.
1. Basics: Discrete problems, expected utility, preference notation
2. Voting methods, properties and paradoxes I
3. Voting methods, properties and paradoxes II
4. Approval voting
5. Case for strategic voting and equilibrium concept
6. Gibbard-Satterthwaite theorem about manipulation of voting methods
7. Arrow’s theorem about aggregation of individual preferences into social preferences
8. Apportionment problem
9. Single peaked preferences
10. Stability of voting rules, voting about voting rule, constitutions
11. Student presentations: Solutions and failures to public goods, free riding
12. Student presentations: Solutions and failures to public goods, free riding
Learning outcomes
The course aims to familiarise students with theoretical findings key to both the study of politics and economics, including Arrow’s impossibility theorem, the Gibbard-Satterthwaite theorem and findings pertaining to different types of voting systems. Other topics include the relationship between political decision-making and externalities, or public goods. After completing the course, students will be familiar with the basic assumptions of the topics examined and the methods of the field. Additionally, students will understand the limitations of findings and their applicability to the real world.