Mathematics of Social Choice (Math 19)
Spring 2016
Basic Course Info
- Professor: Moon Duchin — Office hours (in BP 113) after class and by appointment
- Syllabus
- Midterms : Monday Feb 22 (open block) and Friday March 18 (in class) — Department policy on missed exams
- Final: Monday May 9, 3:30-5:30pm
Course Materials
- The course uses Piazza for questions, comments, and so on.
- Here is a Voting Handout with practice problems on the voting material (Ch 1-12 of the book).
- Note on calling a method a priori Smith fair, etc
- Suggested topics for your optional paper.
- Practice problems for the second midterm.
- Solutions to HW7 (Muller-Satterthwaite)
- Lecture notes on apportionment
- Solutions to HW9 (isoperimetry and compactness)
- Slideshow on isoperimetry and redistricting
- Notes on Benford's Law
- Practice Problems (and solutions) for the final exam
- More practice problems in basic probability (with answers). Note: "complement" means the negation of the event; the complement of E is "not E".
- Yet more probability practice
| # | Due date | Assignment |
|---|---|---|
| HW 0 | Jan 25 | One example of a voting system (see above) |
| HW 1 | Wed Jan 27 | Ch 1) 1,4,5 |
| HW 2 | Feb 1 | Ch 1) 7,9 ; Ch 2) 1,2,9 |
| HW 3 | Feb 8 | Ch 2) 6,7,8 ; Ch 3) 2,3 Problem A: Show that Dictatorship is unanimity-fair. |
| HW 4 | Wed Feb 17 | Ch 4) 1,4,5,6 Handout: 3abcd, 13abde |
| Optional Exam Practice | Feb 22 | preference schedules: Handout 1,2,5,6,7a, 9abcde,12apq,14(all but m) explanations: Ch 5) 3,4,5,9 |
| HW 5 | Wed Mar 2 | Ch 6) 5 ; Ch 7) 7 ; Handout: 4, 7b, 13cfgh; Article: There is no such thing as public opinion |
| HW 6 | Mar 7 | HW 6 question sheet |
| HW 7 | Mar 14 | HW 7 question sheet |
| HW 8 | Apr 4 | HW 8 question sheet Reading: Redistricting FAQ |
| HW 9 | Apr 11 | HW 9 (and graph
paper) plus, post a redistricting Q to Piazza |
| HW 10 | Wed Apr 20 | HW 10 question sheet
(print out more grids from last page to use with your answers) |
| HW 11 | Wed Apr 27 | HW 11 question sheet |