Lawn Selection: Approval vs Borda

    Getting a room on the Lawn is a huge honor but few students know how the winners are actually picked. The lawn selection committee consists of 64 Students. These students vote in rounds: first each member gets a limited number of "yes" votes, then they vote "yes" again on the top 100, and ties are broken by ranking. After the reading, I wondered if instead of approval voting the committee should use a Borda count. During the second round, members would rank every finalist and then add the points rather than a second yes round. The big plus of Borda is that it shows how much a member likes someone, since a "yes" treats a member's first pick and fiftieth pick the same. Mueller reports that Borda picks the Condorcet winner more often than approval, and that it is hard to game.

    The usual problem with ranking is that it takes a lot of effort, but that matters less here because members would only rank the top 100. However, there is a larger problem which is that Borda says the gap between 1st and 2nd is the same as 10th and 11th, which is hard to assume when the qualifications being judged are "meaningful and engaged participation." Along with the time it would take to rank all 100 people, a yes is easier to explain to a student than a rank. Overall, the Lawn's process already works well, but using Borda in round two would make the final cut more precise for a small cost in effort. 

Hotel(ling)

While driving out of Boston Logan Airport to begin my venture home for Fall Break, three hotels made a triangle around I-90: Embassy Suites, Hilton, and Hyatt. With the same multi-story, brown brick, uniform box structure, the buildings' "identity signs" served as their only differentiation. And while the architectural and location choices were identical enough, inside, visitors enjoy all the same complimentary services (breakfast, housekeeping, Wi-Fi, parking) and amenities (gym, pool, mini-fridge, toiletries). The convergence of the greater hospitality industry is explained by, ironically, Hotelling's Spatial Location Theory. 

Each of the three hotels is "midscale." If traveler accommodation preferences were sorted linearly, with camping at 0 and the Four Seasons at 100, Hotelling's Theory predicts market share maximization at this "midscale" tier. The middle-to-high earners sacrificing an infinity pool for a better price point and the middle-to-low earners paying a little extra for a standard pool, for example. And while these hotels might not have a fine dining room, the list of once "luxury" amenities is growing and standardizing (listed above), as brands are forced to match those of their competitors to maintain such market share. The hotel trifecta's location choice further supports Hotelling's Theory, with all three looking for an even split of traveler demand as travelers flock to the nearest hotel after a long travel day. 

Ranked Choice Chaos in Alaska

Alaskan voters recently affirmed their loyalty to Ranked Choice Voting, and it seems that this decision has the potential to sway a highly contested Senate seat...due to a split vote between current Senator Dan S. Sullivan (R) and retired teacher Dan J. Sullivan (R) who share similar names. Currently, the vote is projected to be neck and neck between Dan S. and Democratic challenger former Rep. Mary Peltola, with Dan J. grabbing just ~3% of the vote. 

However, one Republican interest group filed a complaint with the FEC claiming that Dan J.'s sole purpose in joining the election was to split the Republican vote and bring down Dan S., citing Dan S.'s illegal dealings with ad groups against Dan S. The name confusion is said to be enough to split the Republican vote. However, this is a complaint that rings true with a plurality system of voting like that of Nicaragua, not RCV. Here, the voters leaning towards the imposter Dan J. will almost certainly rank Dan S. as the second option, as a vote for Dan J. seems more like a statement vote than anything more substantial, but yet not enough of a statement to actually vote for a Democrat. 

In this sense, those using this situation to press the iron to RCV have little case. Of course, there is an opportunity to have voters rank Dan J, Peltola, Dan S. and actually split the vote, but this seems unlikely and insignificant (I hypothesize that anyone who votes for Dan J. is on the more extreme side of the political spectrum, and as demonstrated by the Hotelling-Downs Model, will not likely vote for Peltola before Dan S.). Perhaps Alaskans should be grateful for such a voting system that removes the incentives of a vote-splitter, as Dan J. running as an independent in our traditional election systems may actually hold sway (perhaps there is variability in voter preference between the election and the runoff to give an edge to Peltola) and avoid producing the Condorcet Winner.

Are Politicians Still Chasing the Middle Voters?

The Median Voter Theorem suggests that in a two-party, majority rule election, parties will have an incentive to move towards the median voter so that they can get the most amount of votes possible. But what happens when candidates change who the voters are instead?

As politics becomes more polarized and extreme, at least seven states have redrawn their congressional districts to help the party in power prior to the 2026 midterm elections, most favoring Republicans. This process of gerrymandering has reduced electoral competition, meaning that some individuals and groups are losing voting power. It has also created an interesting problem for the Median Voter Theorem. 

Neither the voters nor the candidates preferences have shifted. Instead, the distribution of voters has changed, shifting the location of the median voter and therefore, candidates vote-maximizing strategies. Redrawing the districts moved the median voter closer to the party in power, creating a margin of safety in case of abstention and making it unnecessary for incumbent candidates to moderate their policies. In Louisiana's 6th district, the Black voting population fell from 53% to 25%, shifting the median voter from a liberal to a more conservative voter, reducing the Republican candidate need to appeal to Black voters. 

Politicians are still trying to maximize votes, but by changing district boundaries, they changed the group they need to appeal to. If politicians can choose the voters they need to win, then they may not need to chase the moderate median voter anymore, which can have extreme effects on future elections and the shape of politics as a whole in America.

Is Bolsonaro Brazil's Condorcet Winner?

Condorcet winners seem like an optimist's dream - but finding Condorcet winners in elections is like trying to find a four leaf clover. But could there be one in the Brazil presidential election? Brazil runs its elections as majority rule with a runoff, so since no candidate reached 50% or more of the vote after the recent election results, Lula (incumbent) and Flávio Bolsonaro will be sent to a runoff election. Many of the candidates that received less than 3% of the vote are right of center, so Lula would likely not be the Condorcet winner since Bolsonaro is very right-wing. But does Bolsonaro have the makings of a Condorcet winner? 

There one way this is likely to go when comparing Bolsonaro with any of the minor candidates, including Cury. In an election between Bolsonaro and Cury, if all 47% of Bolsonaro's voters vote for him again, the 53% of other voters decides the election results. Bolsonaro would win the election if he gets a share of non-Bolsonaro voters such that: 47 +53*s > 50 =. s > 3/53=5.7%. Cury would need a share of 94.3% of all non-Bolsonaro voters to win, so it seems like Bolsonaro is a shoe-in for a Condorcet winner. 

To prevent Bolsonaro from becoming a Condorcet winner, 94.3% of all non-Bolsonaro voters would need to vote for Cury. Even though Lula's base is very anti-Bolsonaro, a 90%+ preference for Cury from all non-Bolsonaro voters seems unlikely. Strategic voting could have also caused understatements in the minor candidates' first-round support, which may mean that some Bolsonaro voters engaged in strategic voting and did not vote for Cury even though they liked him. With all that in mind, it still seems like this is a likely case where Bolsonaro is an elusive Condorcet winner.

Copper or Cooperation?

Online and in the news, you hear about the virtues of a “high trust society”. Japan in 2011 was noted for the lack of looting following the Fukushima disaster by both the BBC and NPR. Many attributed this lack of thievery in the wake of a natural disaster to Japan being a “high trust society”. 

An understanding of the prisoner’s dilemma tells you why a “high trust society” might be valuable. Simply put, the prisoner’s dilemma describes a scenario where uncooperative behavior, that constitutes a dominant strategy for both parties, can be deterred by government action to achieve a pareto optimal move whereby each party achieves a utility improvement via their joint choice of cooperative behavior. A world where cooperative behavior (looting abstention) does not need to be compelled by costly government action saves tax payer money and is therefore more efficient. 

On the other hand, one can see how an uncooperative society comparatively struggles. Either the parties reside at a pareto inefficient utility level, or the government has to continuously spend money to compel cooperative behavior. Neither of these are good. 

This understanding helps explain why so many say LA is failing. LA is experiencing unprecedented levels of copper wire theft from their street lights currently. Over 27,000 feet of copper wiring has been stolen since February of last year according to the LA Dept of Water & Power. Now, LA city officials are calling on Governor Newsom to pass AB1941 criminalizing “organized metal theft” for up to a year. Most US cities don’t even consider the need to deter infrastructure pilfering. LA must now do so to ensure its citizens can simply drive on lit roads.

Fashion Week or Campaign Season

This month, fashion week took over all the big cities. While watching the runway shows, I kept wondering where these pieces end up. The pieces are sculptural, full of clashing patterns, and extravagant materials. Yet at the same time, these brands' stores are full of cream sweaters, black trousers and a wall of simple handbags. For a long time I assumed the runway was just art for art's sake; I now know this is a strategic move. The runway is a party platform's "extreme stand."

In a two-party system, parties pack their platforms with an overlapping mass of moderate policies in the middle of the scale, where most voters are. But a party can't go completely bland, or it loses its most loyal supporters at the edges. So each party will sprinkle a few extreme stands to please its far-out voters. A fashion house does exactly this. Its stores are the moderate mass, full of wearable basics that could belong to almost any label. Its runway is the sprinkle of extremes for editors and collectors. Like a party's extreme stands, those looks aren't meant to win over the average shopper. Take Loewe under Jonathan Anderson. His runways featured heels made from nail polish bottles, birthday candles, and cracked eggshells. Yet the brand's defining product was the Puzzle bag, a structured, clean leather bag. 

Although they might not be consumed, these extreme stances let a customer differentiate one brand from another. Strip away the logos, and one luxury house's camel coat is nearly impossible to tell from another's. The runway isn't where a brand makes its sales. It's where a brand shows what it stands for.

 

A Transfer Portal Dilemma

The introduction of the transfer portal into college sports, particularly football and basketball, created an interesting example of the prisoner's dilemma. Coaches and programs can choose to cooperate and minimize their use of the portal, or they can defect and seek out transfer players. For our purposes, let us consider only two programs. There is a Pareto-efficient outcome where each decides not use the portal (cooperate). However, each program has an individual incentive to defect; using the portal while the other does not gives them a competitive advantage. Since each faces this incentive, they defect and are both worse off than they would be had they each cooperated. What if they didn't reach this equilibrium?

Let's consider a comparison of two coaches currently participating in the transfer portal dilemma: Curt Cignetti and Dabo Swinney. Cignetti turned around an Indiana team that went 3-9 in the year prior to his arrival to a 16-0 national champion in just two years. He did this with a roster that added 52(!) transfers during this period. Dabo Swinney has been stubborn in his refusal to allocate resources towards the portal in favor of developing high school recruits, taking only 3 transfers over the same period. Swinney has fallen from the heights of his pre-portal success and Clemson has turned into a middling program. As noble as Swinney's motivations may be, Cignetti's defection and Swinney's insistence on cooperation have created the outcome we may expect. Cignetti's behavior demonstrates the benefit programs can gain from defection while others continue to cooperate.

The Future Harm of Rational Ignorance

Rational ignorance assumes that the cost of acquiring information may outweigh its immediate benefit. There is a significant stepback of this idea. Rational Ignorance can be very harmful to you because deciding not to deepen your understanding on certain topics now, may result in greater marginal cost in the future. This can be seen when you will urgently need an information/skill after several years if you had learned/mastered it in the past. This missed opportunity will probably cause you to waste your precious free time as you get busier with a career. Currently, many college students have free time that tends to be used unwisely. Therefore, depending on the developments later in your life, such unwillingness to learn additional information may stab you in the back. 

A good thing to note is that financial information can have value beyond the present decision. The majority of university graduates going into their first job had none or minimal information on how to do their tax deductions or plan their retirement savings. Most of their arguments were backed by the idea that retirement is “decades away and there is time”. This prevents many people from managing money in the best possible way and end up paying much more taxes than needed, for example. The finance saying “Money is worth more today” directly implies that rational ignorance underestimates that time is worth more today than tomorrow, specifically the opportunity you had to learn something more. In simpler words, rational ignorance may seem beneficial when the immediate cost of learning outweighs the immediate benefit, but this ignores the future value of information. Learning something today may have a small immediate payoff but provide significant benefits over your lifetime.

Rational Voter Theory in the NBA

ESPN recently released their annual list of the NBA's top 100 players of 2026, decided on by 7 panelists. These professionals have dedicated their lives to watching basketball feeding their analysis to fans who, however dedicated to their teams, cannot hope to watch every game every night. In this, we arrive at the theory of a rational voter. There are many opportunity costs to watching basketball, such as working, studying, or doing Public Choice homework. This means that the MC curve of the casual fan must slope up with increasing opportunity cost for each additional unit of basketball consumed. Additionally, without being paid for watching the game nonstop, there are obviously decreasing marginal benefits of another unit of basketball (watch a Kings versus Nets game to find out). At some point, where MB=MC of basketball knowledge, there is an optimal point. Can we show this empirically?

It's complicated. The NBA All-Star game participants are selected by a combination of media member, player, and fan voting, the results of which are published. One would probably expect when comparing player and fan differentials to media rankings that the players would be closer to the "truth", i.e. maximum knowledge, as their MB of knowledge is higher and their MC is lower, on account of their salaries and scouting reports, and thus higher equilibrium point. However, players only averaged .3 points closer to the media than fans on average.

Perhaps this means that players are actually under-consuming knowledge, as they consistently rank close to the fans who aren't paid millions to study film. This could be explained by the now-famous NBA player Twitter habit. The rational voter consumes the knowledge that is easiest to find first, meaning social media in this case. Take a twitter-controversial player like Lika Doncic as an example: players rank him around 10, yet the media has him at 4. As another example, a rookie player like Cooper Flagg is placed by players at 34, yet rises to 23 in the eyes of professionals. This is an interesting example of it being rational to consume more - one would expect better game-planning for players who are more accurate about the skill level of their opponents.

No Impact, No Problem

This past Friday, early voting opened in the state of Virginia, and my grandmother made the front page of the Richmond Times Dispatch, eagerly casting her ballot on the first day she possibly could, grinning ear to ear and proudly sporting her red, white, and blue. My grandmother has held an astounding enthusiasm for voting for as long as I have known her, and it is something I have always greatly admired about her. However, the rationality behind her eagerness to vote is questionable, as her candidate for the House of Representatives this year is currently forecasted to have a 99% chance of winning and is expected to receive 71.1% of the vote, meaning there is essentially no chance her vote would have an impact. When weighing the expected marginal benefit she gains from voting against the marginal cost (PB - C), the P is so tiny that it is most certainly negative.

Of course, this isn’t special to my grandmother’s district. We have discussed extensively that the probability of an individual vote being pivotal is essentially always zero, but in her case we can also rule out that she is voting because she overestimates this probability, as she is very aware her candidate will win in a landslide whether or not she chooses to vote. So why does she do it? I immediately called her after seeing this headline to ask her this very question, and she replied word for word: “It's a constitutional and globally unique right that I must never take for granted at any time”. She doesn’t vote because she thinks her individual ballot will elect a candidate or influence policy, she votes because she loves what the act of voting itself represents. She votes, and votes enthusiastically at that, because she is so grateful she can. As discussed in class, this high utility associated with voting, independent of whether her ballot influences the election, can be factored in, significantly increasing her marginal benefit. Accounting for this alters her equation to PB + HighUtility - C, which her behavior suggests is likely much greater than zero. So, despite knowingly having no tangible impact on the candidate elected, my grandmother's marginal benefit of voting still exceeds her marginal cost, and she proudly heads to the polls. Maybe you can make the news too if you cast your vote this election season :)

A Non-Regulatory Approach to Addressing a "Public Health Crisis"

     Recently it seems as though more and more experts and commentators have been focusing on the harms of legalized sports betting. Many states have attempted to tackle the issue with either public regulation or a private monopoly supported by anti-competitive state policy (e.g. only Draft Kings can facilitate bets). The impetus for these regulatory measures is not just that legalized gambling poses a risk to those with gambling addictions but there are also negative consumption externalities that may affect the public at large. Compulsive gambling has been linked to increased bankruptcy rates (with many families becoming financially ruined due to a member's gambling problem) and lower productivity across the board, especially among young men. Many states, such as New York, have incredibly high tax rates on gambling revenues, reaching upwards of 50%. 

In spite of the regulatory initiatives, the issue remains that these books receive a disproportionate amount of revenue from excessive gamblers. As evidenced by numerous horror stories of sportsbooks attempting to lure problem gamblers back to using their platform, these books still have an incentive to circumvent these regulations. Additionally, a high tax rate means thinner profit margins. In the long run it is certainly possible that markets and social awareness may mitigate the problems associated with problem gambling and protect vulnerable consumers and their dependents; however, protecting these consumers in the short run may require some unconventional policy solutions. One potential solution could be to introduce a reverse Pigouvian tax (essentially a subsidy) which encourages good behavior on the part of the sportsbook. This could take the form of an independent auditing agency determining whether or not the sportsbook has successfully barred problem gamblers from using the platform. If the book passes the audit, they could be eligible for entry into a lower tax bracket. While there are certainly drawbacks to this sort of policy (such as reducing state revenue) and I am not claiming it to be a permanent fix, it could offer protection for vulnerable consumers by mitigating a sportsbook’s incentive to go after them. Protecting these consumers would protect society writ large by reducing their negative consumption externalities. Instead of referring to this as a solution it may be wiser to heed the words of Thomas Sowell and refer to it as an advantageous trade-off. After all, as Sowell would say, there are no solutions, only trade-offs. 

On My Honor

As the capabilities of AI have improved, the temptation for college students to cheat using AI has increased. According to a Berkeley study published in May, 9% of students who used AI admitted to using it to cheat. The study was conducted in the spring of 2024 and considering how quickly the technology has been adopted, coupled with the response bias inherent in asking students to admit to cheating, the current rate of AI cheating among undergraduates is likely much higher. As I lamented over this issue, I realized that the choice facing students about whether or not to cheat on a test with AI is a classic example of the Prisoner's Dilemma. 

Most students, even those with a solid understanding of the course material, would probably be able to improve their test score, even marginally, by consulting AI. If a student's classmates all use AI to cheat, their higher test scores will skew the grading curve, leaving the student worse off if he does not follow suit. Assuming the professor is oblivious, cheating becomes the dominant strategy for all students because it will give them a better score (higher utility) than if they do not cheat, irrespective of the choices of their classmates. However, ideally the UVA Honor Code would act as a deterent so that no students would cheat, resulting in the Pareto-Efficient solution. 

Census Data: Private or Public?

    The U.S. Census Bureau runs many annual or monthly programs to guide congressional apportionment and federal funding. This data is a public good as it is non-rival and non-excludable. Anyone can use the data to conduct analysis and it is impossible to exclude as people are needed to conduct the polls. However, the Census suffers from the free rider problem, the poll rates have been falling over the past couple years. People will continue to use the data but fail to respond to polls sent out by the Bureau. As a result, the polls are not representative of the population they seek to emulate. 

    With the emergence of the iPhone and the increased digitalization, technology companies have unprecedented amounts of data on the U.S consumer. Along this shift, the government could turn to private companies to supplement or replace its own polling. This is already partially happening, the BLS uses a dataset purchased from J.D. Power to estimate its new-vehicles price index, and airline fares data from the Department of Transportation instead of running its own survey. If this trend continues, access to population data could depend on paying a company for it, turning a non-excludable public good into an excludable private one. 

I Swear We're Not That Messy.

I’ve lived with my roommates for over a year, and despite the substantial amount of time we spend together, collectively cleaning our apartment is the worst. Either we are too lazy, too busy, or unwilling to claim our mess. However, we prefer to keep a clean living environment. Since some of my roommates refuse to use a chore chart, how our apartment’s common spaces ultimately end up getting cleaned presents itself as a classic prisoner’s dilemma. 

The ultimate goal is to have clean common spaces in our apartment. We each have the choice between cleaning and not cleaning. Each of us has a dominant strategy: don’t clean and hope the other cleans up. The sub-optimal options would be for one person to clean and the other free ride on the results of the roommate’s cleaning. The Pareto Optimal solution would be for all of us to clean collaboratively, where even though we would have to put in effort, it would take less time and our apartment would be clean. However, we all expect someone else to do the work, and while we wouldn’t have to do the work (meaning higher utility), our apartment stays dirty (sub-optimal utility). 

This being said my roommates and I ironically hate a dirty living environment. Outside of this dilemma, we do end up cleaning our apartment. While our apartment ultimately gets cleaned, it does so at sub-optimal utility levels where we all put in different amounts of effort. Yet, this "collaboration" is not a change in dominant strategies, but rather the result of a durable relationship and repeated cleaning interactions. Over the weeks of living together, each of us developed a "nice strategy" at some point and chose a sub-optimal decision to clean our common spaces. Regardless, I hope that maybe this year I can finally convince everyone to get the chore chart. Our lives would be so much easier.

Why do we always have to stand at concerts?

I love live music. I am writing this as Mumford and Sons is playing at JPJ. While I wish I could go, I am going to see Sam Barber on Thursday, and I told myself I wouldn’t do two concerts in a week. But there is one thing that always makes me mad at concerts. And it’s a classic prisoner’s dilemma. Take Ting Pavilion here in Charlottesville. It has a great lawn in the back where you could set out some chairs or a picnic blanket. And yet I never do. Why? Because there are always a few people standing right in front of me blocking the view. 

If we all cooperated, we could sit down, be comfortable, and enjoy the concert without sore legs from standing for hours. However, since the people in front of me are always chasing the best view by standing up, they block my view and it is rational for me to stand up as well. At this point, we have ended up with about the same view we would have had sitting down, but with tired legs and people bumping into you.

Yet, everyone is acting rationally and will stand so as not to be the seated person with his view blocked by the standing crowd. As a result, we will likely not reach the desired cooperation that maximizes comfort and view unless the event venue provides different areas where you must either sit or stand. But my solution. Just get pit tickets so you can be closer to the stage since you’re going to be standing regardless.