Social Science

2208 Submissions

[4] viXra:2208.0166 [pdf] submitted on 2022-08-29 05:12:21

Analysis of the 2021 Instant Run-Off Elections in Utah

Authors: Jiri Navratil, Warren D. Smith
Comments: 15 pages main paper + 8 pages appendix

We analyzed the 2021 Ranked Choice Voting elections in Utah County and Moab (the capitol of Grand County), focusing on the Instant Runoff Voting (IRV) algorithm. We found three issues: (1) The fractions of ballots discarded and those that needed rectification exceeded 10% in 7 of the 17 races (across 4 municipalities) indicating a considerable degree of voter confusion .(2) Four different election pathologies were detected in the Council (Seat 1) race in Moab: failure to elect a consensus winner, monotonicity failure and two participation failures. A ``spoiler'' candidate, which IRV proponents have claimed this method prevents, was also detected.(3) Four towns elected two seats by discarding the winner of the first seat, then re-running IRV with the resulting modified ballots to determine the winner of the second seat. This all four times caused the second-place finisher in the first election, not to win the 2nd seat, but rather to finish second again, somewhat frustratingly for them.Overall, IRV elected the same winner as standard plurality in 15 of 16 races with >= 3 candidates, with the single changed outcome in the Vineyard City Council (Seat 2) race.We also analyzed the data from a recount viewpoint -- implementing the Utah Election Code rules for automatic recounts versus Blom et al. ``Exact Margin of Victory (EMOV)'' method. According to the former, a recount was justified in two races, namely the Springville (4yr) and Moab City Councils; butonly Moab was actually recounted. However, EMOV showed recounting Springville almost certainly would have been inconsequential. As far as we know, this is the first-of-kind analysis of IRV elections in the state of Utah and it highlights the paradoxical properties of the IRV algorithm --- often incorrectly dismissed as too rare to worry about --- showing that these unfortunately indeed occur in real-world elections hence really are worrisome. In conjunction with the above-mentioned ballot issues, these problems cast doubt on the wisdom of IRV for Utah. We believe there are better alternatives than IRV, e.g. ``range voting,'' and these should become part of a debate towards fundamentally rethinking the program.
Category: Social Science

[3] viXra:2208.0126 [pdf] submitted on 2022-08-22 20:30:10

Price Derivatives in Commodity Market

Authors: Alex Yang
Comments: 24 Pages.

This article presents a new approach for pricing commodity derivatives. The key to this approach is the model calibration that makes the model prices of vanilla options match the market prices and the implied model dynamics be in good agreement with the characteristics of the historical data series. Our theoretical results show that the model can better capture the price and volatility dynamics. Empirical study shows that the model performs quite well.
Category: Social Science

[2] viXra:2208.0112 [pdf] submitted on 2022-08-20 02:23:57

Confronting the Aporias of the Inclusion Practice

Authors: Gennady Shkliarevsky
Comments: 20 Pages.

The article offers a critique of the current practice on inclusion. Several principal concerns arise in connection with this practice. The fact that it has its roots in the European Enlightenment tradition makes it culturally specific and largely reflective of Western values that are not universally shared. Also, as a result of the selective application of this practice, it actually involves exclusion, which makes this practice contradictory. Finally, its objectivist approach underestimates the role of subjective factors (values, norms, and cultural traditions). These concerns indicate the need for a new inclusion practice. The article outlines a new approach toward inclusion. This approach emerges from a better understanding of what inclusion actually is and what it involves. The article demonstrates the connection between inclusion and the process of creation. This close relationship suggests that the new practice of inclusion should use the process of creation as its main organizing principle.KEYWORDS: Inclusion; The Practice of Inclusion; Conservation; Difference; The Process of Creation
Category: Social Science

[1] viXra:2208.0051 [pdf] submitted on 2022-08-09 19:46:06

LIBOR Market Model Pricing

Authors: Yongxin Xiao
Comments: 13 Pages.

This article presents a lattice approach for LIBOR Market Model by using several fast drift approximation methods. The fast convergence behavior requires fewer discretization nodes that gives better performance without losing much accuracy. Moreover, the calibration is almost automatic and it is simple and easy to implement.
Category: Social Science