SMU SOE Seminar (Feb 2, 2017): Designing (BREXIT) Referendum: An Economist’s Pessimistic Perspective

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ABSTRACT Recently, there is a trend all over the world (e.g., in Colombia, Italy, Switzerland, and U.K.) that referendums are used to determine social decisions. This paper studies designing a referendum. In several setups (e.g., different solution concepts and different types of mechanisms), we prove three impossibility results, i.e., a social goal can be achieved if and only if it is dictatorial. In a petition to U.K. Parliament singed by more than 2.5 million people, it is proposed that a second referendum will be held if the result of the first referendum does not meet a pre-determined condition. We also provide a possibility result, which fully characterizes when such an option of a second referendum may help us achieve a non-dictatorial social goal. Click here to view the paper. Click here to view his CV.
		PRESENTER Siyang Xiong University of Bristol
		RESEARCH FIELDS Microeconomic Theory
		DATE: 2 Feb 2017 (Thursday)
		TIME: 4pm - 5.30pm
		VENUE: Meeting Room 5.1, Level 5 School of Economics Singapore Management University 90 Stamford Road Singapore 178903