Elizabeth Maggie Penn
Dados Biográficos
| ID | 976764 |
|---|---|
| NOME | Elizabeth Maggie Penn |
| PRENOMES | Elizabeth Maggie |
| SOBRENOME | Penn |
| ASSINATURA | PENN E M |
| AFILIAÇÕES | Emory University |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-2018-4367 |
| VERIFICADO | Sim |
| TOTAL DE OBRAS | 26 |
| TOTAL DE CITAÇÕES | 122 |
| TOTAL COMO AUTOR | 26 |
| TOTAL COMO EDITOR | 0 |
| PRIMEIRO ANO DE PUBLICAÇÃO | 2008 |
| ANO MAIS RECENTE DE PUBLICAÇÃO | 2025 |
| ÍNDICE H | 5 |
Classification algorithms and social outcomes
Classification algorithms are increasingly important in areas such as obtaining credit, employment, health care, housing, law enforcement, and national security. These classification decisions affect people's lives and, accordingly, can shape their behaviors. We present a formal model of optimal classification by an algorithm designer who may want to affect the distribution of behavior in a population. Our model allows the designer to have a wide…
Ban the Box? Information, Incentives, and Statistical Discrimination
“Banning the Box” refers to a policy campaign aimed at prohibiting employers from soliciting applicant information that could be used to statistically discriminate against categories of applicants (in particular, those with criminal records). In this article, we examine how the concealing or revealing of informative features about an applicant’s identity affects hiring both directly and, in equilibrium, by possibly changing applicants’ incentives…
Stealing an Election
Political actors often resort to electoral violence to gain an edge over their competitors even though violence is harder to hide than fraud and more likely to delegitimize elections as a result. Existing explanations tend to analyze violence in terms of the same factors as fraud, or to treat violence as a means of last resorts given its overtness. We introduce a novel explanation that does neither, arguing that political actors often use violenc…
Algorithmic Fairness and Statistical Discrimination
Algorithmic fairness is a new interdisciplinary field of study focused on how to measure whether a process, or algorithm, may unintentionally produce unfair outcomes, as well as whether or how the potential unfairness of such processes can be mitigated. Statistical discrimination describes a set of informational issues that can induce rational (i.e., Bayesian) decision-making to lead to unfair outcomes even in the absence of discriminatory intent…
Norman James Schofield 1944–2019
Measuring Fairness, Inequality, and Big Data
Kenneth J. Arrow was one of the most important intellectuals of the twentieth century, and his “impossibility theorem” is arguably the starting point of modern, axiomatic social choice theory. In this review, we begin with a brief discussion of Arrow's theorem and subsequent work that extended the result. We then discuss its implications for voting and constitutional systems, including a number of seminal results—both positive and negative—that c…
A defense of Arrow’s independence of irrelevant alternatives
Introduction to a special issue in honor of Kenneth Arrow
Valence, Elections, and Legislative Institutions
To the degree that voters care about competence, expertise, and other valence characteristics of their representatives and political parties care about winning elections, parties have an incentive to signal that their legislators have such characteristics. We construct a model of parties, motivated by both reelection and by policy, that attempt to signal individual incumbents' valences to voters through the assignment of these members to position…
Are Moderates Better Representatives than Extremists? A Theory of Indirect Representation
Few, if any, elected representatives are capable of unilaterally implementing their platforms. Rather, they choose between options generated by other actors and/or external events. We present a theory of voters' preferences over representatives who will cast votes on their behalf, and show that in this setting voters' preferences over candidates' platforms will not look like voters' preferences over policies. We demonstrate that these induced pre…
What Is Pivotal Politics (and What Else Can It Be)
In this article, we discuss what Krehbiel’s Pivotal Politics theory does (and does not) imply and then turn to ways that this parsimonious and highly influential theory of lawmaking can and should be extended. An overarching theme is that Pivotal Politics continues to teach us much about lawmaking. While (like all theories) it may be critiqued and interrogated, it remains true that “you can’t beat something with nothing
Uncertainty, polarization, and proposal incentives under quadratic voting
Inequality, Social Context, and Value Divergence
I present a model in which people develop certain skills (or traits) and also assign worth to those skills. The worth a person assigns to different skills are the person’s values. These values can be used to evaluate one’s own skills and the skills of others. I show that when people are incentivized to place more value on skills for which they are comparatively advantaged, those with lower opportunities for success may be led to adopt more extrem…
Introduction to the Journal of Theoretical Politics special issue in honor of Norman Schofield
Engagement, Disengagement, or Exit
This article considers the possibility of mutually beneficial communication among groups when any group may choose to unilaterally join or exit an alliance. My main concern is the trade‐off groups face between the informational benefits of associating with others in a large society versus the costs imposed by power sharing and preference diversity. When these costs are sufficiently high, groups may prefer exit to association. The results of this …
Aggregation, Evaluation, and Social Choice Theory
We argue that political theory, regardless of whether it is “positive” or “normative” in nature, is structured and unified by social choice theory. We point out that the central conclusions of social choice theory are context-free and thus apply to any aggregation of multiple factors. The generality of the basic framework of social choice theory implies its results are relevant to any consideration of trade-offs and, because any interesting theor…
Analyzing Big Data
An abstract is not available for this content so a preview has been provided. Please use the Get access link above for information on how to access this content
Social Choice and Legitimacy
Governing requires choices, and hence trade-offs between conflicting goals or criteria. This book asserts that legitimate governance requires explanations for such trade-offs and then demonstrates that such explanations can always be found, though not for every possible choice. In so doing, John W. Patty and Elizabeth Maggie Penn use the tools of social choice theory to provide a new and discriminating theory of legitimacy. In contrast with both …
Sequential Decision Making and Information Aggregation in Small Networks
This article describes and investigates a model of strategic sequential decision making in networked policy-making environments with three agents. The primary interest is the effect of network structure on sequential policy making and information aggregation. The model and results illustrate how individual policy decisions of varying weight (in terms of a decision maker's unilateral effect on policy outcomes) can enable information aggregation in…
Scoring from Contests
This article presents a new model for scoring alternatives from “contest” outcomes. The model is a generalization of the method of paired comparison to accommodate comparisons between arbitrarily sized sets of alternatives in which outcomes are any division of a fixed prize. Our approach is also applicable to contests between varying quantities of alternatives. We prove that under a reasonable condition on the comparability of alternatives, there…
Manipulation and Single-Peakedness
This article considers environments in which individual preferences are single-peaked with respect to an unspecified, but unidimensional, ordering of the alternative space. We show that in these environments, any institution that is coalitionally strategy-proof must be dictatorial. Thus, any nondictatorial institutional environment that does not explicitly utilize an a priori ordering over alternatives in order to render a collective decision is …
The Structure of Heresthetical Power
This article considers manipulation of collective choice — in such environments, a potential alternative is powerful only to the degree that its introduction can affect the collective decision. Using the Banks set (Banks, 1985), we present and characterize alternatives that can, and those that can not, affect sophisticated collective decision-making. Along with offering two substantive findings about political manipulation and a link between our …
From Many, One
I present a formal model of the effect of political representation on the formation of group identities using the drafting of the United States Constitution as a case study. I first show the presence of `factions', or groups with competing interests, to be beneficial in forging a national identity. Next, I use this model to argue that the Great Compromise succeeded as more than a political maneuver to ensure ratification of the Constitution; it c…
A Model of Farsighted Voting
I present a new method of interpreting voter preferences in settings where policy remains in effect until replaced by new legislation. In such settings voters consider not only the utility they receive from a given policy today, but also the utility they will receive from policies likely to replace that policy in the future. The model can be used to characterize both long‐term preferences and distributions over policy outcomes in situations where…
A distributive N-amendment game with endogenous agenda formation
Citizenship versus Ethnicity
This paper examines the role that political institutions play in inducing or subduing ethnic identification. I provide a formal model of ethnic identification as a function of institutional design and social context that focuses on one question: what kinds of institutions will induce individuals to identify with the state rather than along ethnic lines? Among other things, the model offers predictions about when political institutions are capable…
A Model of Farsighted Voting
I present a new method of interpreting voter preferences in settings where policy remains in effect until replaced by new legislation. In such settings voters consider not only the utility they receive from a given policy today, but also the utility they will receive from policies likely to replace that policy in the future. The model can be used to characterize both long‐term preferences and distributions over policy outcomes in situations where…
Manipulation and Single-Peakedness
This article considers environments in which individual preferences are single-peaked with respect to an unspecified, but unidimensional, ordering of the alternative space. We show that in these environments, any institution that is coalitionally strategy-proof must be dictatorial. Thus, any nondictatorial institutional environment that does not explicitly utilize an a priori ordering over alternatives in order to render a collective decision is …
Sequential Decision Making and Information Aggregation in Small Networks
This article describes and investigates a model of strategic sequential decision making in networked policy-making environments with three agents. The primary interest is the effect of network structure on sequential policy making and information aggregation. The model and results illustrate how individual policy decisions of varying weight (in terms of a decision maker's unilateral effect on policy outcomes) can enable information aggregation in…
The Structure of Heresthetical Power
This article considers manipulation of collective choice — in such environments, a potential alternative is powerful only to the degree that its introduction can affect the collective decision. Using the Banks set (Banks, 1985), we present and characterize alternatives that can, and those that can not, affect sophisticated collective decision-making. Along with offering two substantive findings about political manipulation and a link between our …
Are Moderates Better Representatives than Extremists? A Theory of Indirect Representation
Few, if any, elected representatives are capable of unilaterally implementing their platforms. Rather, they choose between options generated by other actors and/or external events. We present a theory of voters' preferences over representatives who will cast votes on their behalf, and show that in this setting voters' preferences over candidates' platforms will not look like voters' preferences over policies. We demonstrate that these induced pre…
Inequality, Social Context, and Value Divergence
I present a model in which people develop certain skills (or traits) and also assign worth to those skills. The worth a person assigns to different skills are the person’s values. These values can be used to evaluate one’s own skills and the skills of others. I show that when people are incentivized to place more value on skills for which they are comparatively advantaged, those with lower opportunities for success may be led to adopt more extrem…
Engagement, Disengagement, or Exit
This article considers the possibility of mutually beneficial communication among groups when any group may choose to unilaterally join or exit an alliance. My main concern is the trade‐off groups face between the informational benefits of associating with others in a large society versus the costs imposed by power sharing and preference diversity. When these costs are sufficiently high, groups may prefer exit to association. The results of this …
From Many, One
I present a formal model of the effect of political representation on the formation of group identities using the drafting of the United States Constitution as a case study. I first show the presence of `factions', or groups with competing interests, to be beneficial in forging a national identity. Next, I use this model to argue that the Great Compromise succeeded as more than a political maneuver to ensure ratification of the Constitution; it c…
Algorithmic Fairness and Statistical Discrimination
Algorithmic fairness is a new interdisciplinary field of study focused on how to measure whether a process, or algorithm, may unintentionally produce unfair outcomes, as well as whether or how the potential unfairness of such processes can be mitigated. Statistical discrimination describes a set of informational issues that can induce rational (i.e., Bayesian) decision-making to lead to unfair outcomes even in the absence of discriminatory intent…
Valence, Elections, and Legislative Institutions
To the degree that voters care about competence, expertise, and other valence characteristics of their representatives and political parties care about winning elections, parties have an incentive to signal that their legislators have such characteristics. We construct a model of parties, motivated by both reelection and by policy, that attempt to signal individual incumbents' valences to voters through the assignment of these members to position…
Stealing an Election
Political actors often resort to electoral violence to gain an edge over their competitors even though violence is harder to hide than fraud and more likely to delegitimize elections as a result. Existing explanations tend to analyze violence in terms of the same factors as fraud, or to treat violence as a means of last resorts given its overtness. We introduce a novel explanation that does neither, arguing that political actors often use violenc…
A defense of Arrow’s independence of irrelevant alternatives
Aggregation, Evaluation, and Social Choice Theory
We argue that political theory, regardless of whether it is “positive” or “normative” in nature, is structured and unified by social choice theory. We point out that the central conclusions of social choice theory are context-free and thus apply to any aggregation of multiple factors. The generality of the basic framework of social choice theory implies its results are relevant to any consideration of trade-offs and, because any interesting theor…
Analyzing Big Data
An abstract is not available for this content so a preview has been provided. Please use the Get access link above for information on how to access this content
A distributive N-amendment game with endogenous agenda formation
Ban the Box? Information, Incentives, and Statistical Discrimination
“Banning the Box” refers to a policy campaign aimed at prohibiting employers from soliciting applicant information that could be used to statistically discriminate against categories of applicants (in particular, those with criminal records). In this article, we examine how the concealing or revealing of informative features about an applicant’s identity affects hiring both directly and, in equilibrium, by possibly changing applicants’ incentives…
What Is Pivotal Politics (and What Else Can It Be)
In this article, we discuss what Krehbiel’s Pivotal Politics theory does (and does not) imply and then turn to ways that this parsimonious and highly influential theory of lawmaking can and should be extended. An overarching theme is that Pivotal Politics continues to teach us much about lawmaking. While (like all theories) it may be critiqued and interrogated, it remains true that “you can’t beat something with nothing
A distributive N-amendment game with endogenous agenda formation
Citizenship versus Ethnicity
This paper examines the role that political institutions play in inducing or subduing ethnic identification. I provide a formal model of ethnic identification as a function of institutional design and social context that focuses on one question: what kinds of institutions will induce individuals to identify with the state rather than along ethnic lines? Among other things, the model offers predictions about when political institutions are capable…
The Structure of Heresthetical Power
This article considers manipulation of collective choice — in such environments, a potential alternative is powerful only to the degree that its introduction can affect the collective decision. Using the Banks set (Banks, 1985), we present and characterize alternatives that can, and those that can not, affect sophisticated collective decision-making. Along with offering two substantive findings about political manipulation and a link between our …
From Many, One
I present a formal model of the effect of political representation on the formation of group identities using the drafting of the United States Constitution as a case study. I first show the presence of `factions', or groups with competing interests, to be beneficial in forging a national identity. Next, I use this model to argue that the Great Compromise succeeded as more than a political maneuver to ensure ratification of the Constitution; it c…
A Model of Farsighted Voting
I present a new method of interpreting voter preferences in settings where policy remains in effect until replaced by new legislation. In such settings voters consider not only the utility they receive from a given policy today, but also the utility they will receive from policies likely to replace that policy in the future. The model can be used to characterize both long‐term preferences and distributions over policy outcomes in situations where…
Manipulation and Single-Peakedness
This article considers environments in which individual preferences are single-peaked with respect to an unspecified, but unidimensional, ordering of the alternative space. We show that in these environments, any institution that is coalitionally strategy-proof must be dictatorial. Thus, any nondictatorial institutional environment that does not explicitly utilize an a priori ordering over alternatives in order to render a collective decision is …
Scoring from Contests
This article presents a new model for scoring alternatives from “contest” outcomes. The model is a generalization of the method of paired comparison to accommodate comparisons between arbitrarily sized sets of alternatives in which outcomes are any division of a fixed prize. Our approach is also applicable to contests between varying quantities of alternatives. We prove that under a reasonable condition on the comparability of alternatives, there…
Social Choice and Legitimacy
Governing requires choices, and hence trade-offs between conflicting goals or criteria. This book asserts that legitimate governance requires explanations for such trade-offs and then demonstrates that such explanations can always be found, though not for every possible choice. In so doing, John W. Patty and Elizabeth Maggie Penn use the tools of social choice theory to provide a new and discriminating theory of legitimacy. In contrast with both …
Sequential Decision Making and Information Aggregation in Small Networks
This article describes and investigates a model of strategic sequential decision making in networked policy-making environments with three agents. The primary interest is the effect of network structure on sequential policy making and information aggregation. The model and results illustrate how individual policy decisions of varying weight (in terms of a decision maker's unilateral effect on policy outcomes) can enable information aggregation in…
Aggregation, Evaluation, and Social Choice Theory
We argue that political theory, regardless of whether it is “positive” or “normative” in nature, is structured and unified by social choice theory. We point out that the central conclusions of social choice theory are context-free and thus apply to any aggregation of multiple factors. The generality of the basic framework of social choice theory implies its results are relevant to any consideration of trade-offs and, because any interesting theor…
Analyzing Big Data
An abstract is not available for this content so a preview has been provided. Please use the Get access link above for information on how to access this content
Introduction to the Journal of Theoretical Politics special issue in honor of Norman Schofield
Engagement, Disengagement, or Exit
This article considers the possibility of mutually beneficial communication among groups when any group may choose to unilaterally join or exit an alliance. My main concern is the trade‐off groups face between the informational benefits of associating with others in a large society versus the costs imposed by power sharing and preference diversity. When these costs are sufficiently high, groups may prefer exit to association. The results of this …
Uncertainty, polarization, and proposal incentives under quadratic voting
Inequality, Social Context, and Value Divergence
I present a model in which people develop certain skills (or traits) and also assign worth to those skills. The worth a person assigns to different skills are the person’s values. These values can be used to evaluate one’s own skills and the skills of others. I show that when people are incentivized to place more value on skills for which they are comparatively advantaged, those with lower opportunities for success may be led to adopt more extrem…
What Is Pivotal Politics (and What Else Can It Be)
In this article, we discuss what Krehbiel’s Pivotal Politics theory does (and does not) imply and then turn to ways that this parsimonious and highly influential theory of lawmaking can and should be extended. An overarching theme is that Pivotal Politics continues to teach us much about lawmaking. While (like all theories) it may be critiqued and interrogated, it remains true that “you can’t beat something with nothing
Measuring Fairness, Inequality, and Big Data
Kenneth J. Arrow was one of the most important intellectuals of the twentieth century, and his “impossibility theorem” is arguably the starting point of modern, axiomatic social choice theory. In this review, we begin with a brief discussion of Arrow's theorem and subsequent work that extended the result. We then discuss its implications for voting and constitutional systems, including a number of seminal results—both positive and negative—that c…
A defense of Arrow’s independence of irrelevant alternatives
Introduction to a special issue in honor of Kenneth Arrow
Valence, Elections, and Legislative Institutions
To the degree that voters care about competence, expertise, and other valence characteristics of their representatives and political parties care about winning elections, parties have an incentive to signal that their legislators have such characteristics. We construct a model of parties, motivated by both reelection and by policy, that attempt to signal individual incumbents' valences to voters through the assignment of these members to position…
Are Moderates Better Representatives than Extremists? A Theory of Indirect Representation
Few, if any, elected representatives are capable of unilaterally implementing their platforms. Rather, they choose between options generated by other actors and/or external events. We present a theory of voters' preferences over representatives who will cast votes on their behalf, and show that in this setting voters' preferences over candidates' platforms will not look like voters' preferences over policies. We demonstrate that these induced pre…
Norman James Schofield 1944–2019
Ban the Box? Information, Incentives, and Statistical Discrimination
“Banning the Box” refers to a policy campaign aimed at prohibiting employers from soliciting applicant information that could be used to statistically discriminate against categories of applicants (in particular, those with criminal records). In this article, we examine how the concealing or revealing of informative features about an applicant’s identity affects hiring both directly and, in equilibrium, by possibly changing applicants’ incentives…
Stealing an Election
Political actors often resort to electoral violence to gain an edge over their competitors even though violence is harder to hide than fraud and more likely to delegitimize elections as a result. Existing explanations tend to analyze violence in terms of the same factors as fraud, or to treat violence as a means of last resorts given its overtness. We introduce a novel explanation that does neither, arguing that political actors often use violenc…
Algorithmic Fairness and Statistical Discrimination
Algorithmic fairness is a new interdisciplinary field of study focused on how to measure whether a process, or algorithm, may unintentionally produce unfair outcomes, as well as whether or how the potential unfairness of such processes can be mitigated. Statistical discrimination describes a set of informational issues that can induce rational (i.e., Bayesian) decision-making to lead to unfair outcomes even in the absence of discriminatory intent…
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