Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Göttingen, 2004. / Includes bibliographical references (p. [115]-121) and index.

abstract: Borda's social choice method and Condorcet's social choice method are shown to satisfy different monotonicities and it is shown that it is impossible for any social choice method to satisfy them both. Results of a Monte Carlo simulation are presented which estimate the probability of each of the following social choice methods being manipulable: plurality (first past the post), Borda count, instant runoff, Kemeny-Young, Schulze, and majority Borda. The Kemeny-Young and Schulze methods exhibit the strongest resistance to random manipulability. Two variations of the majority judgment method, with different tie-breaking rules, are compared for continuity. A new variation is proposed which minimizes discontinuity. A framework for social choice methods based on grades is presented. It is based on the Balinski-Laraki framework, but doesn't require aggregation functions to be strictly monotone. By relaxing this restriction, strategy-proof aggregation functions can better handle a polarized electorate, can give a societal grade closer to the input grades, and can partially avoid certain voting paradoxes. A new cardinal voting method, called the linear median is presented, and is shown to have several very valuable properties. Range voting, the majority judgment, and the linear median are also simulated to compare their manipulability against that of the ordinal methods. / Dissertation/Thesis / Ph.D. Mathematics 2010

A presente dissertação apresenta dois ensaios sobre decisão, incerteza e escolha social no contexto eleitoral. O primeiro ensaio aborda de modo teórico o tema da ambiguidade nos discursos de campanha dos políticos, relacionando-o com a teoria da decisão sob incerteza, e trazendo os seus efeitos para a tomada de decisão individual e coletiva. O segundo ensaio trata de uma análise teórica acerca da liberdade de escolha dos indivíduos durante o processo eleitoral quando há incerteza a respeito das características dos candidatos, utilizando como base duas abordagens axiomáticas de liberdade de escolha presentes na literatura. / This dissertation presents two essays on decision, uncertainty and social choice in the electoral context. The first essay theoretically approaches the topic of ambiguous campaign discourses, relating it to the decision theory under uncertainty, and showing what effects it can have on individual and social decision-making processes. The second essay analyzes the freedom of choice aspects of the electoral process when there is uncertainty about the characteristics of candidates, using two axiomatic approaches of freedom that are present in the literature.

In this thesis I will attempt to develop a phenomenological account for Political Liberalism. My hypothesis is that a re-articulation of the main issues in transcendental phenomenology as it relates to social philosophy, first in a genetic sense (as developed by Alfred Schutz), but also in a generative context (as developed by Bernhard Waldenfels), provides us with a methodological ground that can instigate a more complex account for the questions of social choice and the way in which we establish preferences. My thesis is that such a complex account of social choice can motivate us to focus on the disordered nature of our constitution of preferences, and point at the importance of a deep comprehension of historicity, along with a defense of freedom of speech as a tool for resignification of social values.

A presente dissertação apresenta dois ensaios sobre decisão, incerteza e escolha social no contexto eleitoral. O primeiro ensaio aborda de modo teórico o tema da ambiguidade nos discursos de campanha dos políticos, relacionando-o com a teoria da decisão sob incerteza, e trazendo os seus efeitos para a tomada de decisão individual e coletiva. O segundo ensaio trata de uma análise teórica acerca da liberdade de escolha dos indivíduos durante o processo eleitoral quando há incerteza a respeito das características dos candidatos, utilizando como base duas abordagens axiomáticas de liberdade de escolha presentes na literatura. / This dissertation presents two essays on decision, uncertainty and social choice in the electoral context. The first essay theoretically approaches the topic of ambiguous campaign discourses, relating it to the decision theory under uncertainty, and showing what effects it can have on individual and social decision-making processes. The second essay analyzes the freedom of choice aspects of the electoral process when there is uncertainty about the characteristics of candidates, using two axiomatic approaches of freedom that are present in the literature.

A presente dissertação apresenta dois ensaios sobre decisão, incerteza e escolha social no contexto eleitoral. O primeiro ensaio aborda de modo teórico o tema da ambiguidade nos discursos de campanha dos políticos, relacionando-o com a teoria da decisão sob incerteza, e trazendo os seus efeitos para a tomada de decisão individual e coletiva. O segundo ensaio trata de uma análise teórica acerca da liberdade de escolha dos indivíduos durante o processo eleitoral quando há incerteza a respeito das características dos candidatos, utilizando como base duas abordagens axiomáticas de liberdade de escolha presentes na literatura. / This dissertation presents two essays on decision, uncertainty and social choice in the electoral context. The first essay theoretically approaches the topic of ambiguous campaign discourses, relating it to the decision theory under uncertainty, and showing what effects it can have on individual and social decision-making processes. The second essay analyzes the freedom of choice aspects of the electoral process when there is uncertainty about the characteristics of candidates, using two axiomatic approaches of freedom that are present in the literature.

The purpose of this dissertation was to analyze theoretically and test empirically the impact of individual misperceptions about the costs and benefits of public activities on the size of the public sector. In chapters 2 and 3, the literature on misperceptions and deceptive practices in competitive markets and in the public sector was reviewed. It was demonstrated that because private and public goods possessed credence characteristics which cannot be evaluated even after a purchase, permanent misperceptions could exist about the marginal benefits of those goods. It was also argued that because of the rational ignorance of voters and the costs of information about marginal tax-costs, individual voter-taxpayers could be fooled permanently about their respective tax-prices of public goods and services, In comparison, such misperceptions of prices were considered improbable in the private sector because of the low information costs involved. In chapter 4, the effect of permanent misperceptions of marginal costs and benefits on the level of public activities was derived by using the median voter model. For example, it was demonstrated that the permanent underestimation of marginal costs could lead to a contraction rather than an expansion of the public sector while the simultaneous underestimation of costs and benefits could promote greater public expenditures than if costs alone were misperceived. In chapter 5, the incentives of government in promulgating permanent misperceptions by voter-taxpayers were studied. It was argued that in most circumstances, government would benefit by letting taxpayers underestimate their tax costs and overestimate their benefits permanently. Finally, chapter 6 reviewed the empirical evidence related to the existence of fiscal misperceptions. It was concluded that while numerous investigations demonstrated that taxpayers were unaware of a variety of taxes, there were little clues suggesting that they will consistently underestimate their tax burden under particular financing institutions, Additional empirical tests presented in this study further suggested that the level of state expenditures in 1978 was relatively independent of the financing methods used by governments. The share of public debt in state revenues was the only variable found to have a statistically significant correlation with public expenditures. / Ph. D.

The three constituent chapters of this thesis tackle independent, self-contained research questions, all concerning welfare economics in general and its application to climate change policy in particular. Climate change is a policy problem for which the costs and benefits are distributed unequally across space and time, as well as one involving a high degree of uncertainty. Therefore, cost-benefit analysis of climate policy ought to be based on a welfare function that is sufficiently sophisticated to incorporate the three dimensions of aggregation: time, risk and space. Chapter 1 is an axiomatic treatment of a stylised model in which all three dimensions appear. The main result is a functional representation of the social welfare function for policy assessment in such situations. Chapter 2 is a numerical mitigation policy analysis. I modify William Nordhaus' RICE-2010 model by replacing his social welfare function with one that allows for different degrees of inequality aversion along the regional and inter-temporal dimension. I find that, holding the inter-temporal coefficient of inequality aversion fixed, performing the optimisation with a greater degree of regional inequality reduces the optimal carbon tax relative to treating the world as a single aggregate consumer. In Chapter 3 I analyse climate policy from the point of view of intergenerational transfers. I propose a system of transfers that allows future generations to compensate the current one for its mitigation effort and demonstrate the effects in an OLG model. When the marginal benefit to a - possibly distant - future generation is greater than the cost of compensating the current generation for its abatement effort, a Pareto improvement is possible by a combination of mitigation policy and transfer payments. I show that under very general assumptions the business-as-usual outcome is Pareto dominated by such policies and derive the conditions for the set of climate policies that are not dominated thus.

A thesis submitted to the Faculty of Architecture, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree Master of Urban Design / This discourse represents a searching process. Its outcomes are consciously unpredictable and open-ended. Its topic is influenced by spatial dilemma across the spectrum of South - African cities and the fact that opportunities of finding answers towards integration on a regional level has only now become desirable and feasible through national policy. During a period of heightened political awareness the need for integration and improved access has become a pressing issue which forces us to seek answers on our feet.( Abbreviation abstract ) / AC2017

Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of the Witwatersrand, Faculty of Commerce, Law and Management, School of Economic & Business Sciences, 2017. / The present thesis considers the state as a public organization, namely a complex structure that individuals use to accomplish collectively their individual interests mainly through exchange. By placing greater emphasis on exchange, the thesis is able to suggest novel insights about the organization of the public sector. [Abbreviated abstract. Open document to view full version] / GR2018