Computational Democracy Research Seminar (CoDeRS) - Tomasz Wąs

Speaker: Tomasz Wąs (Oxford)
Title: Method of Equal Shares with Bounded Overspending

Abstract:
Pure proportional voting rules can sometimes lead to highly suboptimal outcomes. We introduce the Method of Equal Shares with Bounded Overspending (BOS Equal Shares), a robust variant of the Method of Equal Shares that balances proportionality and efficiency. BOS Equal Shares addresses inefficiencies implied by strict proportionality axioms, yet still provides fairness guarantees, similar to the original Equal Shares. Our extensive empirical analysis shows excellent performance of BOS Equal Shares across several metrics. In the course of the analysis, we also study a fractional variant of the Method of Equal Shares.