UVA Sports: Logrolling for Attendance

This morning, one of our coaches sent an email stating that our team is required to attend the volleyball game this upcoming Sunday, October 20th. In return of the wrestling teams attendance at the volleyball game, the volleyball team will attend our home matches. At first, I was a little upset because the volleyball game is at 1 pm (right when NFL games start for the day) and I love lounging on my couch, watching NFL Redzone on Sundays. With my attendance of the volleyball game, I will not be able to take part in my regular Sunday routine, which will bring down my overall utility levels.

Now I am currently sitting at Shenandoah Joes with my good friend Jack and he just brought up how he wants to do a blog post about bagels or something, but that is when it hit me. Our coaches and the volleyball coaches have decided to enter into a logrolling agreement for attendance. While I can hope that both coaching staffs calculated the social marginal costs and social marginal benefits before making the trade, they probably did not. So I will do it on my own:

	Volleyball	Wrestling	Social Net Benefit
Wrestling team attends volleyball game	10	-2	8
Volleyball team attends wrestling match	-2	10	8

As you can see, the Social Net Benefit is well above the costs of attending each others matches, making both of these UVA sports teams better off than if there was no logrolling. Go hoos.

The Minimax Regret of Bodos vs. Cutting Weight

Now that November is right around the corner, I am going to have to start cutting weight soon. With cutting weight I eat the same thing every day and only eat these things: waffle in the morning, a wheat sandwich with ham and cheese for lunch, and chicken and broccoli for dinner. However, every time I pass Bodos whether I am walking or driving, I feel my stomach start to rumble at the smell of an everything bagel. I stop, take in the smell, and make the decision of whether or not I get a loaded bagel. In order to make this decision I use the minimax regret model.

The marginal cost of eating this bagel would be that I would have to run for about 30 minutes to burn it all off and have the possibility of not making my weight. On the other hand the marginal benefit from an everything bagel with sausage, egg, provolone cheese, and avocado, is very high with the joy that my taste buds would get from it.

The regret would come from not eating the bagel and still making weight, missing out on all of the joy that the bagel brings. However, the marginal cost of missing weight and my coach possibly killing me deters me from eating the bagel almost every time.

Ranked Voting in Medieval England

In Monty Python and the Holy Grail, King Arthur ventures out into the far reaches of 10^th century England to find knights for his Round Table when he stumbles upon an “anarcho-syndicalist commune” created to redistribute power to the working classes and create economic equality within their domain. He specifically encounters some very forward-thinking Middle-Age peasants, Dennis and his mother, who explain to a confused Arthur the problems of the economic and social state preserved within Medieval England.

This commune doesn’t have a lord. Instead of having a one leader living in a castle, this group of Britons takes turns as executive officer each week, and every decision has to be ratified by all the people through means of a simple majority in some cases and a two-thirds majority in more complex situations.

Is this the best way the commune can vote though? Are simple majority and two-thirds majority the best voting methods for the commune?

Whoever sets up a vote at the biweekly meeting can influence the outcome. The executive office chosen at random, which isn’t the smartest way to choose a leader, can influence policy simply by asking the right questions in the right order. Considering the voting systems described by Dennis, a simple majority and a two-thirds majority, a Condorcet winner may not be chosen frequently.

How can this commune improve their outcome?

Changing the voting system to a Borda count, or at the least a ranked vote of some kind, could offer a Condorcet winner with much higher frequency. While modern day Americans might have less incentive to put in the effort required for a ranked vote due to the unlikelihood of affecting election outcomes, each individual within the commune has a much higher chance of being a decisive voter; the population of England during the 10^th century is estimated to be roughly two million people, and the commune only represents a small portion of the nation’s population. The number of people in the commune is relatively small. Because each individual’s vote counts more and the commune is seeking to bring about well-thought social and economic change, the commune should consider changing their voting system to a Borda count for improved efficiency.