The Inforum Model of the Polish Economy
A demand-oriented model for Poland is developed. A number of special features are incorporated to reflect the realities of the Polish economy and to take advantage of some of the statistics which are available in Poland but not in Western Europe. These special features include disequilibrium indicators in the consumer demand equations, direct measurement of capital stocks and technological progress, allowance for hoarding of obsolete equipment, strong connections between input coeffcients and new investment, and the treatment of liquidity overhang. Results of simulations showed correctly in advance the effects of the 1990 austerity policy. Experiments indicate the best way to use foreign investment funds.
PCE in IMPEC Model - Constructing a Database
In the 20 years history of the IMPEC model PCE (personal consumption expenditures) equations have been estimated many times. Number of categories distinguished varied from 1 to 18. The maximum number of categories (18) is not very high according to standards of Inforum type models. For example, number of equations in US model is 93, Spanish 42, Japanese – 85. The reason of the comparatively small number of categories in the Polish model has been the lack of data. In the middle of 90-ties equations of 18 PCE categories were estimated using Almon’s PADS system (see Almon 1996). The first results were presented for the Inforum Conference in Bertinoro in 1997. Refined results were presented for the Macromodels conference in 1999 and published in the conference proceedings (Plich 2000). That time not much attention was paid to present the methodology of constructing of time series being the base for the estimations.
Strategy and Manipulation in Medieval Elections
There are many goals in developing electoral protocols, including a desire for a system which is transparent, in that it is clear what the rule or procedure to follow is; nonmanipulable, in that it is not in a person’s best interest to misrepresent their preferences; honest, in the sense that it elects the ‘right’ candidate; and not open to strategizing, i.e., bribery or collusion. However, these desiderata are in tension with each other: Often, transparent electoral procedures are the least strategy resistant, and many honest procedures encourage manipulation. Thus a balance between these different goals must be sought. In modern times, since the seminal result on vote manipulation, the Gibbard-Satterthwaite Theorem [5, 6], much attention has been devoted to developing voting rules where manipulation is never in the best interest of the voters [4] or which are computationally too complex for the average bounded agent to be able to manipulate [1]. This focus on computational aspects of electoral methods is one of the hallmarks of modern studies on voting. But pursuit of these goals is not restricted to modern times: Those participating in elections in the Middle Ages also sought transparency, non-manipulability, honesty, and strategyproofness in so far as these properties can be consistently expressed in a single procedure. However, given the lack of computational sophistication in the Middle Ages, alternate approaches were needed in order to promote honesty, discourage strategizing, etc. These approaches can be classified as either external (constraints introduced outside of the electoral procedure, such as incentives for coming to consensus quickly) or internal (constraints introduced within the electoral procedure, such as voting rules which cannot be manipulated without adverse effects, or which are too difficult for the average bounded agent to manipulate). Surveying examples of both approaches in the context of medieval ecclesiastical and secular elections provides an interesting comparison to modern electoral procedures. Elections in the Middle Ages were used for the same reasons that they are today: To select suitable candidate(s) for a particular office, duty, or obligation. However, it is important to note that the term electio was used in the Middle Ages in a broader sense than our modern ‘election’. Its primary sense was ‘selection’ or ‘choice’, and only secondarily ‘election’ in the modern sense. Thus, many records which purportedly discuss elections are not discussing elections of the type which interests us. We can identify four categories of medieval electoral processes: (1) Election by an external authority having no direct interest in the election; (2) Indirect election, where electors name other electors who then select or elect the officials; (3) Election by lot; and (4) Election by ballot. Elections of the first and third types are generally computationally uninteresting; the first type corresponds to dictatorial voting rules, and the third type collapses to probability theory. In general, interesting voting methods are found only in the fourth type, election by ballot, though they can also occur in indirect election.