The Homepage of John Duggan

	Bio		Recent Updates		Teaching		Research		Contact Information		Links

April 2, 2012:   "Notes on Rational Choice Under Uncertainty" Notes from Positive Political Theory, PSC 408, Spring, 2012.
April 1, 2012:   "Notes on Social Choice Rules" Notes from Positive Political Theory, PSC 408, Spring, 2012.
April 1, 2012:   "A Survey of Equilibrium Analysis in Spatial Models of Elections" Small corrections to a substantially revised version of an earlier survey.
February 24, 2012:   "Notes on Optimization and Pareto Optimality" Notes from Positive Political Theory, PSC 408, Spring, 2012.
February 13, 2012:   "Noisy Stochastic Games" This paper proves existence of stationary Markov perfect equilibrium in a wide class of stochastic games, and it gives applications to dynamic models of industrial organization and elections. Here are some slides from a talk. Forthcoming in Econometrica.
February 11, 2012:   "Quick Lemma on Upper Hemi-continuity of the Bochner Integrals of Lp-Valued Correspondences" This note contains a lemma that is of potential use in the study of stochastic games.
October 12, 2011:   "Extremal Choice Equilibrium: Existence and Purification with Infinite-dimensional Externalities" with Paulo Barelli. A general framework for existence and purification with applications to Bayesian games and large games.
September 26, 2011:   "Limits of Acyclic Voting and Implementation" This one has been in the works for a while. Note the "throwback" typesetting, including typewriter math font (not easy to do).
September 26, 2011:   "More Bogosity Results for Monotonic Social Choice Rules" with Tom Schwartz. From the archives: One of my unpublished "classics," related to some results in my paper "Limitations of Acyclic Voting and Implementation," posted above.
September 26, 2011:   "General Conditions for Existence of Maximal Elements via the Uncovered Set" A note using the uncovered set to give general conditions for existence of maximal elements of a binary relation, including generalizations of Fan's (1961) lemma and Browder's (1968) theorem. Published in Journal of Mathematical Economics, 47: 755--759.
August 16, 2011:   "Bayesian Implementation" From the archives: My dissertation on Bayesian implementation with arbitrary type spaces (not even assuming measurable strategies)! What could be better? The manuscript is in its original form, including the original type setting errors (if I could only find the .tex file).
August 5, 2011:   "Dynamic Legislative Policy Making" with Tasos Kalandrakis. The final version of this paper generalizes recognition probabilities and the voting rule to depend on the status quo, and we now discuss some extensions at the end. Here are slides from a talk that mainly focusses on existence and properties of equilibrium, and here are some slides from a talk specifically on our core convergence result. Forthcoming in Journal of Economic Theory.
August 3, 2011:   "Coalitional Bargaining Equilibria"An updated and improved version. Here are some slides from a shorter talk that was pretty good. Here are some slides from a longer talk that was probably less clear.

May 14, 2011:   "Quick Lemma on Convexity of the Aumann Integral of L1-Selections from a Correspondence on a Product Space" This note contains a lemma that is of potential use in the study of stochastic games.

April 25, 2011:   "Uncovered Sets" This one took me a while to finish and post. The most recent version contains results on a generalized version of the minimal covering set and an extension of the Banks set to general environments.

Teaching

Lecture Notes

• Notes on optimization and Pareto optimality from Positive Political Theory, PSC 408, Spring, 2012.

• Notes on rational choice under uncertainty from Positive Political Theory, PSC 408, Spring, 2012.

• Notes on social choice rules from Positive Political Theory, PSC 408, Spring, 2012.

• Lecture slides on social choice from Formal Models in Political Science, PSC 281/Eco 282 Spring, 2009. Lots of pictures.

Graduate Syllabi

Rochester

• Mathematical Modelling in Political Science
  This course is the first half of the first-year formal theory sequence required of Ph.D. students in political science at Rochester. Here is an early syllabus, when the class was primarily a math class. Here is a later syllabus after adding more modeling. This course is now split between mathematics and modeling, as a recent syllabus attests. Check Mark Fey's syllabus for the second course in the sequence.
• Introduction to Positive Political Theory
  This course is the second half of the first-year formal theory sequence required of Ph.D. students in political science at Rochester. Here is a syllabus from one of the times I taught this course. Check Mark Fey's syllabus for this course in its current form.
• Political Economy 1
  This course is offered to advanced Ph.D. students in political science and economics and is the first half of the political economy sequence offered through the Wallis Institute. Here is an early syllabus, a more recent syllabus, and the current syllabus.
• Dynamic and Computational Modeling
  Tasos Kalandrakis and I co-taught this course. Here is the syllabus.
• Topics in Positive Political Theory
  Here is the syllabus for the first time I taught this course, and here is the syllabus for the second time.

Caltech

• Political Theory
  This course is the first quarter in the political theory sequence required of Ph.D. students at Caltech, where I visited in 2002--03. Here is the syllabus.
• Foundations of Political Economy
  This course is offered to advanced Ph.D. students at Caltech, where I visited in 2002-03. Here is the syllabus from the first time I taught this course, and here is the syllabus from the second time.

Queen's

• Topics in Mathematical Economics
  Here is the syllabus from the first time I taught this course, when I covered social choice theory, and here is the syllabus from the second time, when I covered implementation theory.

Undergraduate Syllabi

Rochester

• Introduction to Game Theory
  Here is the syllabus from the first time I taught undergraduate game theory, and here is a later syllabus.
• Formal Models in Political Science (formerly Intro to Positive Political Theory)
  Here is the syllabus from the first time I taught undergraduate formal theory, and here is the most recent syllabus.
• Intermediate Microeconomics

Queen's

• Intermediate Microeconomics
• Topics in Microeconomic Theory
  Here is the syllabus from the first time I taught this course, when I covered social choice theory, and here is the syllabus from the second time, when I covered general equilibrium theory.

Research

Publications in Refereed Journals

• "Noisy Stochastic Games" (2012) Econometrica, forthcoming.
  Here are some slides from a talk.
• "Dynamic Legislative Policy Making" (2011) with Tasos Kalandrakis, Journal of Economic Theory, forthcoming.
  Here are slides from a talk that mainly focusses on existence and properties of equilibrium, and here are some slides from a talk specifically on our core convergence result.
• "General Conditions for Existence of Maximal Elements via the Uncovered Set" (2011) Journal of Mathematical Economics, 47: 755--759.
• "A Spatial Theory of Media Slant and Voter Choice" (2011) with Cesar Martinelli, Review of Economic Studies, 78: 640--666.
• "A Newton Collocation Method for Solving Dynamic Bargaining Games" (2011) with Tasos Kalandrakis, Social Choice and Welfare, 36: 611--650.
• "The Case for Responsible Parties" (2009) with Dan Bernhardt and Francesco Squintani, American Political Science Review, 103: 570--587.
Here are some slides from a talk. Also, check out this presentation in real time.
• "Voting Equilibria in Multicandidate Elections" (2009) with Yoji Sekiya, Journal of Public Economic Theory, forthcoming.
• "Private Polling in Elections and Voter Welfare" (2009) with Dan Bernhardt and Francesco Squintani, Journal of Economic Theory, 144: 2021--2056.
• "Bargaining Foundations of the Median Voter Theorem" (2009) with Seok-ju Cho, Journal of Economic Theory, 144: 851--868.
  Slides from a short seminar. Slides from a longer presentation at the Wallis conference. Detailed slides.
• "A Dynamic Model of Democratic Elections in Multidimensional Policy Spaces" (2008) with Jeff Banks, Quarterly Journal of Political Science, 3: 269--299.
• "Dynamics of the Presidential Veto: A Computational Analysis" (2008) with Tasos Kalandrakis and Vikram Manjunath, Mathematical and Computer Modelling, 48: 1570--1589.
• "Equilibrium Existence for Zero-sum Games and Spatial Models of Elections" (2007) Games and Economic Behavior, 60: 52--74.
• "Electoral Competition with Privately Informed Candidates" (2007) with Dan Bernhardt and Francesco Squintani, Games and Economic Behavior, 58: 1--29.
  For a more general, somewhat less readable version of the paper, click here. Here are some slides from a talk.
• "A Systematic Procedure for the Construction of Non-empty Choice Sets" (2007) Social Choice and Welfare, 28: 491--506.
• "Endogenous Voting Agendas" (2006) Social Choice and Welfare, 27: 495--530.
• "Repeated Downsian Electoral Competition" (2006) with Mark Fey, International Journal of Game Theory, 35: 39--69.
• "A Social Choice Lemma on Voting Over Lotteries" (2006) with Jeff Banks, Social Choice and Welfare, 26: 285--304.
• "A Note on Uniqueness of Electoral Equilibrium When the Median Voter Is Unobserved" (2006) Economics Letters, 92: 240--244.
• "A General Bargaining Model of Legislative Policy-making" (2006) with Jeff Banks, Quarterly Journal of Political Science, 1: 49--85.
• "Social Choice and Electoral Competition in the General Spatial Model" (2006) with Jeff Banks and Michel Le Breton, Journal of Economic Theory, 126: 194--234.
• "Electoral Competition with Policy-Motivated Candidates" (2005) with Mark Fey, Games and Economic Behavior, 51: 490--522.
  Here are some slides from a talk.
• "Uniqueness of Stationary Equilibria in a One-dimensional Model of Bargaining" (2003) with Seok-ju Cho, Journal of Economic Theory, 113: 118--130.
• "Nash Implementation with a Private Good" (2002) Economic Theory, 21: 117--131.
• "Implementing the Efficient Allocation of Pollution" (2002) with Joanne Roberts, American Economic Review, 92: 1070--1078.
• "Bounds for Mixed Strategy Equilibria and the Spatial Model of Elections" (2002) with Jeff Banks and Michel Le Breton, Journal of Economic Theory, 103: 88--105.
• "A Bayesian Model of Voting in Juries" (2001) with Cesar Martinelli, Games and Economic Behavior, 37: 259--294.
• "Mixed Refinements of Shapley's Saddles and Weak Tournaments" (2001) with Michel Le Breton, Social Choice and Welfare, 8: 65--78.
• "Repeated Elections with Asymmetric Information" (2000) Economics and Politics, 12: 109--136.
  Here are some slides from a talk.
• "A Bargaining Model of Collective Choice" (2000) with Jeff Banks, American Political Science Review, 94: 73--88.
• "Strategic Manipulability without Resoluteness or Shared Beliefs: Gibbard-Satterthwaite Generalized" (2000) with Tom Schwartz, Social Choice and Welfare, 17: 85--93.
• "A General Extension Theorem for Binary Relations" (1999) Journal of Economic Theory, 86: 1--16.
• "An Implementation-theoretic Approach to Non-cooperative Foundations" (1999) with Jim Bergin, Journal of Economic Theory, 86: 50--76.
• "An Extensive Form Solution to the Adverse Selection Problem in Principal/ Multi-agent Environments" (1998) Review of Economic Design, 3: 167--191.
• "Virtual Bayesian Implementation" (1997) Econometrica, 65: 1175--1199.
  Here are some slides from a talk.
• "Hansson's Theorem for Generalized Social Welfare Functions: An Extension" (1997) Social Choice and Welfare, 14: 471--478.
• "Dutta's Minimal Covering Set and Shapley's Saddles" (1996) with Michel Le Breton, Journal of Economic Theory, 70: 257--265.
• "Arrow's Theorem in Public Good Environments with Convex Production Technologies" (1996) Journal of Economic Theory, 68: 303--318.
• "A Geometric Proof of Gibbard's Random Dictatorship Theorem" (1996) Economic Theory, 7: 365--369.
• "Functional Voting Operators: The Non-monotonic Case" (1993) with Fuad Aleskerov, Mathematical Social Sciences, 26: 175--201.

*Much of this material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant No. 9975173 and Grant No. 0213738. See individual papers for specific acknowledgements.

Book Chapter

• "Probabilistic Voting in the Spatial Model of Elections: The Theory of Office-Motivated Candidates" (2006) in Social Choice and Strategic Decisions: Essays in Honor of Jeffrey S. Banks, David Austen-Smith and John Duggan, eds., New York: Springer-Verlag.
  Here is Maggie Penn's review of the edited volume.

Unpublished Papers

• "A Bargaining Model of Collective Choice" (1999) with Jeff Banks
  This paper has been published (American Political Science Review, 2000, 94:73-88), but the unpublished version contains an appendix showing that our assumption of "limited shared weak preference" is satisfied in a variety of economic environments.
• "Coalitional Bargaining Equilibria" (2011) Here are some slides from a shorter talk that was pretty good. Here are some slides from a longer talk that was probably less clear.
• "Collective Choice in Linear Environments and Applications to Bargaining and Social Choice" (2006)
• "Dominance-based Solutions for Strategic Form Games" (1998) with Michel Le Breton
  Here are some slides from a talk.
• "Dynamic Political Agency" (2010) with Marcus Berliant (not available yet)
  Here are some slides from a talk.
• "Electoral and Policy Dynamics in US Politics" (2009) with Tasos Kalandrakis (not available yet)
  Here are some slides from a talk.
• "Equilibrium Equivalence Under Expected Plurality and Probability of Winning Maximization" (2000)
  Incomplete: one section missing.
• "Equilibrium Non-existence in a Model of Representative Democracy" (2001) with Arantxa Jarque-Llamazares
• "Existence of Equilibria on Convex Sets" (2004) with Jeff Banks
• "Extremal Choice Equilibrium: Existence and Purification with Infinite-dimensional Externalities" (2011) with Paulo Barelli
• "Generic Expansiveness of the Majority Top Cycle" (2008) (not available yet)
  Here are some slides from a talk.
• "Implementing the Efficient Allocation of Pollution" (1999) with Joanne Roberts
  This paper has been published (American Economic Review, 2002, 92:1070-1078), but the unpublished version contains a section on implementation under incomplete information.
• "Limitations of Acyclic Voting and Implementation" This one has been in the works for a while. Note the "throwback" typesetting, including typewriter math font (not easy to do).
  
• "Mixed Refinements of Shapley's Saddles and Weak Tournaments" (1999) with Michel Le Breton
  This paper has been published (Social Choice and Welfare, 2001, 8:65-78), but the unpublished version contains a more comprehensive analysis of solutions of weak tournaments and an appendix with several additional examples.
• "Mixed Strategy Equilibrium and Deep Covering in Multidimensional Electoral Competition" (2006) with Matt Jackson
  Here are some slides from a talk.
• "More Bogosity Results for Monotonic Social Choice Rules" with Tom Schwartz. From the archives: One of my unpublished "classics," related to some results in my paper "Limitations of Acyclic Voting and Implementation."
  
• "Non-cooperative Games Among Groups" (2001)
• "Robust Implementation" (2001) with Joanne Roberts
• "A Survey of Equilibrium Analysis in Spatial Models of Elections" (2011)
• "Uncovered Sets" (2011)

Dissertation

• "Bayesian Implementation"
  From the archives: My dissertation on Bayesian implementation with arbitrary type spaces (not even assuming measurable strategies)! What could be better? The manuscript is in its original form, including the original type setting errors (if I could only find the .tex file).

Miscellany

• "Acceptance Speech for 2006 Social Choice and Welfare Prize"
  I thought it would be appropriate to post these comments for posterity. My wife and two-year old daughter were present for the ceremony; my daughter lost her patience and started crying right at the end of the speech. Perfect timing.
• BibTeX style file that approximates the requirements for Social Choice and Welfare.
  Here is a link to the BibTeX style I usually prefer.
• "Biography of Jeffrey S. Banks" (2009)
  This is a short biography of Jeff Banks with proper citations of his work.
• "Dynamic Social Choice" (2006)
  Slides from a plenary lecture at the 2006 Meetings of the Society for Social Choice and Welfare. This talk is based on joint work with Tasos Kalandrakis.
• "Formal Political Theory" (2006)
  Slides from a graduate recruiting seminar.
• "A Graphical Perspective on Kolmogorov's Inequality" (2010)
  Nothing deep here, but some nice 3-d pictures (check out p.2). I actually first drew them in grad school to enhance my intuition for the result.
• "How to Maximize Probability of Success in Political Science: Some Tips'' (2005)
  A seminar for graduate students.
• "Lemmas on Minimal (Positively) Dependent Sets" (2008)
• "Making Determinants Less Weird" (2010)
  Just some notes I wrote giving some intuition behind determinants, including a geometric proof of Cramer's rule. Sorry the notes are so terse.
• "A Note on Backward Induction, Iterative Elimination of Weakly Dominated Strategies, and Voting in Binary Agendas" (2003)
  This note was written in 2003 but did not include figures, which were at that time done by hand. Since that writing, the open questions I raised were closed by Patrick Hummel, ``Iterative Elimination of Weakly Dominated Strategies in Binary Voting Agendas with Sequential Voting,'' Social Choice and Welfare, 31: 257--269. This note is in the original form except that I have included figures (omitting two that were redundant) and added margin comments reflecting Hummel's findings. No other modifications (typo corrections or otherwise) were made.
• "A Note on Harsanyi's Social Aggregation Theorem" (1996)
• "A Note on Lebesgue's Dominated Convergence Theorem for Multi-Indexed Sequences of Functions" (2007)
• "A Note on Sensitivity Analysis for Local Solutions of Non-Linear Programs" (2007) with Tasos Kalandrakis
• "A Note on Strict Lower Hemi-Continuity of Mixed Constraint Correspondences" (2007) with Tasos Kalandrakis
  We realized after the fact that there is a much easier way to get this result, but the argument might be of some interest.
• "Pseudo-rationalizability and Tournament Solutions" (1997)
• "Quick Lemma on Convexity of the Aumann Integral of L1-Selections from a Correspondence on a Product Space" (2011)
• "Quick Lemma on Upper Hemi-continuity of the Bochner Integrals of Lp-Valued Correspondences" (2012)
• "A Slight Twist on Glicksberg's Theorem" (2002)

Theoretical Foundations of Political Economy

• Front matter
• Chapter 1: Relations, Preference, and Choice
• Chapter 2: Social Choice Theory
• Chapter 3: Implementation Theory (not available yet)

Contact Information

Links

• U of R homepage
• Wallis Institute of Political Economy
• U of R Political Science
• U of R Economics
• my department web page