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Felix Brandt

Publications and source records attributed to Felix Brandt.

At least 37 records · Page 2Linked to original sources
arXiv2025

Set-Rationalizable Choice and Self-Stability

A common assumption in modern microeconomic theory is that choice should be rationalizable via a binary preference relation, which \citeauthor{Sen71a} showed to be equivalent to two consistency conditions, namely $α$ (contraction) and $γ$ (expansion). Within the context of \emph{social} choice, however, rationalizability and similar notions of consistency have proved to be highly problematic, as witnessed by a range of impossibility results, among which Arrow's is the most prominent. Since choice functions select \emph{sets} of alternatives rather than single alternatives, we propose to rationalize choice functions by preference relations over sets (set-rationalizability). We also introduce two consistency conditions, $\hatα$ and $\hatγ$, which are defined in analogy to $α$ and $γ$, and find that a choice function is set-rationalizable if and only if it satisfies $\hatα$. Moreover, a choice function satisfies $\hatα$ and $\hatγ$ if and only if it is \emph{self-stable}, a new concept based on earlier work by \citeauthor{Dutt88a}. The class of self-stable social choice functions contains a number of appealing Condorcet extensions such as the minimal covering set and the essential set.

cs.MA↗
arXiv2025

Well-posedness of Hibler's parabolic-hyperbolic sea ice model

This paper proves the local-in-time strong well-posedness of a parabolic-hyperbolic regularized version of Hibler's sea ice model. Hibler's model is the most frequently used sea ice model in climate science. Lagrangian coordinates are employed to handle the hyperbolic terms in the balance laws. The resulting problem is regarded as a quasilinear non-autonomous evolution equation. Maximal $\mathrm{L}^p$-regularity of the underlying linearized problem is obtained on an anisotropic ground space in order to deal with the lack of regularization in the balance laws.

math.AP↗
arXiv2025

The Banks Set and the Bipartisan Set May Be Disjoint

Tournament solutions play an important role within social choice theory and the mathematical social sciences at large. We construct a tournament of order 36 for which the Banks set and the bipartisan set are disjoint. This implies that refinements of the Banks set, such as the minimal extending set and the tournament equilibrium set, can also be disjoint from the bipartisan set.

econ.TH↗
arXiv2025

Global strong well-posedness of the CAO-problem introduced by Lions, Temam and Wang

Consider the CAO-problem introduced by Lions, Temam and Wang, which concerns a system of two fluids described by two primitive equations coupled by fully nonlinear interface conditions. They proved in their pioneering work the existence of a weak solution to the CAO-system; its uniqueness remained an open problem. In this article, it is shown that this coupled CAO-system is globally strongly well-posed for large data, even in critical Besov spaces. It is furthermore shown that, away from the boundary, the solution is even real analytic. The approach presented relies on an optimal data result for the boundary terms in the linearized system in terms of time-space Triebel-Lizorkin spaces. Boundary terms are then controlled by paraproduct methods in these spaces.

math.AP↗
arXiv2024

Weak Strategyproofness in Randomized Social Choice

An important -- but very demanding -- property in collective decision-making is strategyproofness, which requires that voters cannot benefit from submitting insincere preferences. Gibbard (1977) has shown that only rather unattractive rules are strategyproof, even when allowing for randomization. However, Gibbard's theorem is based on a rather strong interpretation of strategyproofness, which deems a manipulation successful if it increases the voter's expected utility for at least one utility function consistent with his ordinal preferences. In this paper, we study weak strategyproofness, which deems a manipulation successful if it increases the voter's expected utility for all utility functions consistent with his ordinal preferences. We show how to systematically design attractive, weakly strategyproof social decision schemes (SDSs) and explore their limitations for both strict and weak preferences. In particular, for strict preferences, we show that there are weakly strategyproof SDSs that are either ex post efficient or Condorcet-consistent, while neither even-chance SDSs nor pairwise SDSs satisfy both properties and weak strategyproofness at the same time. By contrast, for the case of weak preferences, we discuss two sweeping impossibility results that preclude the existence of appealing weakly strategyproof SDSs.

cs.GT↗
arXiv2024

Condorcet-Consistent Choice Among Three Candidates

A voting rule is a Condorcet extension if it returns a candidate that beats every other candidate in pairwise majority comparisons whenever one exists. Condorcet extensions have faced criticism due to their susceptibility to variable-electorate paradoxes, especially the reinforcement paradox (Young and Levenglick, 1978) and the no-show paradox (Moulin, 1988). In this paper, we investigate the susceptibility of Condorcet extensions to these paradoxes for the case of exactly three candidates. For the reinforcement paradox, we establish that it must occur for every Condorcet extension when there are at least eight voters and demonstrate that certain refinements of maximin, a voting rule originally proposed by Condorcet (1785), are immune to this paradox when there are at most seven voters. For the no-show paradox, we prove that the only homogeneous Condorcet extensions immune to it are refinements of maximin. We also provide axiomatic characterizations of maximin and two of its refinements, Nanson's rule and leximin, highlighting their suitability for three-candidate elections.

econ.TH↗
arXiv2024

Incentives in Social Decision Schemes with Pairwise Comparison Preferences

Social decision schemes (SDSs) map the ordinal preferences of individual voters over multiple alternatives to a probability distribution over the alternatives. In order to study the axiomatic properties of SDSs, we lift preferences over alternatives to preferences over lotteries using the natural -- but little understood -- pairwise comparison (PC) preference extension. This extension postulates that one lottery is preferred to another if the former is more likely to return a preferred outcome. We settle three open questions raised by Brandt (2017): (i) there is no Condorcet-consistent SDS that satisfies PC-strategyproofness; (ii) there is no anonymous and neutral SDS that satisfies PC-efficiency and PC-strategyproofness; and (iii) there is no anonymous and neutral SDS that satisfies PC-efficiency and strict PC-participation. All three impossibilities require $m\geq 4$ alternatives and turn into possibilities when $m\leq 3$. We furthermore settle an open problem raised by Aziz et al. (2015) by showing that no path of PC-improvements originating from an inefficient lottery may lead to a PC-efficient lottery.

cs.GT↗
arXiv2024

Towards a Characterization of Random Serial Dictatorship

Random serial dictatorship (RSD) is a randomized assignment rule that - given a set of $n$ agents with strict preferences over $n$ houses - satisfies equal treatment of equals, ex post efficiency, and strategyproofness. For $n \le 3$, Bogomolnaia and Moulin (2001) have shown that RSD is characterized by these axioms. Extending this characterization to arbitrary $n$ is a long-standing open problem. By weakening ex post efficiency and strategyproofness, we reduce the question of whether RSD is characterized by these axioms for fixed $n$ to determining whether a matrix has rank $n^2 n!^n$. We provide computer-generated counterexamples to show that two other approaches for proving the characterization (using deterministic extreme points or restricted domains of preferences) are inadequate.

econ.TH↗
arXiv2024

A Robust Characterization of Nash Equilibrium

We characterize Nash equilibrium by postulating coherent behavior across varying games. Nash equilibrium is the only solution concept that satisfies the following axioms: (i) strictly dominant actions are played with positive probability, (ii) if a strategy profile is played in two games, it is also played in every convex combination of these games, and (iii) players can shift probability arbitrarily between two indistinguishable actions, and deleting one of these actions has no effect. Our theorem implies that every equilibrium refinement violates at least one of these axioms. Moreover, every solution concept that approximately satisfies these axioms returns approximate Nash equilibria, even in natural subclasses of games, such as two-player zero-sum games, potential games, and graphical games.

econ.TH↗
arXiv2024

Interaction of liquid crystals with a rigid body

This article investigates the interaction of nematic liquid crystals modeled by a simplified Ericksen-Leslie model with a rigid body. It is shown that this problem is locally strongly well-posed, and that it also admits a unique, global strong solution for initial data close to constant equilibria. The proof of the global strong solution relies on a new splitting method for the director in a mean value zero and average part.

math.AP↗
arXiv2024

A Natural Adaptive Process for Collective Decision-Making

Consider an urn filled with balls, each labeled with one of several possible collective decisions. Now, let a random voter draw two balls from the urn and pick her more preferred as the collective decision. Relabel the losing ball with the collective decision, put both balls back into the urn, and repeat. Once in a while, relabel a randomly drawn ball with a random collective decision. We prove that the empirical distribution of collective decisions produced by this process approximates a maximal lottery, a celebrated probabilistic voting rule proposed by Peter C. Fishburn (Rev. Econ. Stud., 51(4), 1984). In fact, the probability that the collective decision in round $n$ is made according to a maximal lottery increases exponentially in $n$. The proposed procedure is more flexible than traditional voting rules and bears strong similarities to natural processes studied in biology, physics, and chemistry as well as algorithms proposed in machine learning.

econ.TH↗
arXiv2024

On Locally Rationalizable Social Choice Functions

We consider a notion of rationalizability, where the rationalizing relation may depend on the set of feasible alternatives. More precisely, we say that a choice function is locally rationalizable if it is rationalized by a family of rationalizing relations such that a strict preference between two alternatives in some feasible set is preserved when removing other alternatives. Tyson (2008) has shown that a choice function is locally rationalizable if and only if it satisfies Sen's $γ$. We expand the theory of local rationalizability by proposing a natural strengthening of $γ$ that precisely characterizes local rationalizability via PIP-transitive relations and by introducing the $γ$-hull of a choice function as its finest coarsening that satisfies $γ$. Local rationalizability permits a unified perspective on social choice functions that satisfy $γ$, including classic ones such as the top cycle and the uncovered set as well as new ones such as two-stage majoritarian choice and split cycle. We give simple axiomatic characterizations of some of these using local rationalizability and propose systematic procedures to define social choice functions that satisfy $γ$.

econ.TH↗
arXiv2023

Nonlinear theory remedies the lack of invertibility in time periodic fluid flows

This paper provides a framework to strong time periodic solutions of quasilinear evolution equations. The novelty of this approach is that zero is allowed to be a spectral value of the underlying linearized operator. This approach is then applied to time periodic problems associated to the Navier-Stokes equations, generalized Newtonian fluids, quasilinear reaction-diffusion systems as well as to magneto-hydrodynamics.

math.AP↗
arXiv2023

Characterizing the Top Cycle via Strategyproofness

Gibbard and Satterthwaite have shown that the only single-valued social choice functions (SCFs) that satisfy non-imposition (i.e., the function's range coincides with its codomain) and strategyproofness (i.e., voters are never better off by misrepresenting their preferences) are dictatorships. In this paper, we consider set-valued social choice correspondences (SCCs) that are strategyproof according to Fishburn's preference extension and, in particular, the top cycle, an attractive SCC that returns the maximal elements of the transitive closure of the weak majority relation. Our main theorem implies that, under mild conditions, the top cycle is the only non-imposing strategyproof SCC whose outcome only depends on the quantified pairwise comparisons between alternatives. This result effectively turns the Gibbard-Satterthwaite impossibility into a complete characterization of the top cycle by moving from SCFs to SCCs. It is obtained as a corollary of a more general characterization of strategyproof SCCs.

econ.TH↗
arXiv2023

Time periodic solutions to Hibler's sea ice model

It is shown that the viscous-plastic Hibler sea ice model admits a unique, strong $T$-time periodic solution provided the given $T$-periodic forcing functions are small in suitable norms. This is in particular true for time periodic wind forces and time periodic ice growth rates.

math.AP↗
arXiv2022

Reaching Individually Stable Coalition Structures

The formal study of coalition formation in multi-agent systems is typically realized in the framework of hedonic games, which originate from economic theory. The main focus of this branch of research has been on the existence and the computational complexity of deciding the existence of coalition structures that satisfy various stability criteria. The actual process of forming coalitions based on individual behavior has received little attention. In this paper, we study the convergence of simple dynamics leading to stable partitions in a variety of established classes of hedonic games including anonymous, dichotomous, fractional, and hedonic diversity games. The dynamics we consider is based on individual stability: an agent will join another coalition if she is better off and no member of the welcoming coalition is worse off. Our results are threefold. First, we identify conditions for the (fast) convergence of our dynamics. To this end, we develop new techniques based on the simultaneous usage of multiple intertwined potential functions and establish a reduction uncovering a close relationship between anonymous hedonic games and hedonic diversity games. Second, we provide elaborate counterexamples determining tight boundaries for the existence of individually stable partitions. Third, we study the computational complexity of problems related to the coalition formation dynamics. In particular, we settle open problems suggested by Bogomolnaia and Jackson (2002), Brandl et al. (2005), and Boehmer and Elkind (2020).

cs.GT↗
arXiv2022

On the Indecisiveness of Kelly-Strategyproof Social Choice Functions

Social choice functions (SCFs) map the preferences of a group of agents over some set of alternatives to a non-empty subset of alternatives. The Gibbard-Satterthwaite theorem has shown that only extremely restrictive SCFs are strategyproof when there are more than two alternatives. For set-valued SCFs, or so-called social choice correspondences, the situation is less clear. There are miscellaneous - mostly negative - results using a variety of strategyproofness notions and additional requirements. The simple and intuitive notion of Kelly-strategyproofness has turned out to be particularly compelling because it is weak enough to still allow for positive results. For example, the Pareto rule is strategyproof even when preferences are weak, and a number of attractive SCFs (such as the top cycle, the uncovered set, and the essential set) are strategyproof for strict preferences. In this paper, we show that, for weak preferences, only indecisive SCFs can satisfy strategyproofness. In particular, (i) every strategyproof rank-based SCF violates Pareto-optimality, (ii) every strategyproof support-based SCF (which generalize Fishburn's C2 SCFs) that satisfies Pareto-optimality returns at least one most preferred alternative of every voter, and (iii) every strategyproof non-imposing SCF returns the Condorcet loser in at least one profile. We also discuss the consequences of these results for randomized social choice.

cs.GT↗