Symposium with Dimitrios Xefteris

Résumé

Information technologies are increasingly used for coordination purposes in a wide range of human activity, providing a variety of solutions, from tips to avoid traffic to vote recommendations. Indeed, as far as elections are concerned, vote-aid applications are steadily gaining popularity. For instance, in the last parliament elections in the U.K., anti-Brexit voters used extensively web-based coordination algorithms to harmonize their votes and obstruct the election of Brexit-supporting MPs. Is this surge of coordination algorithms unambiguously "good" for social welfare? Or, does it also pose threats? We will discuss recent theoretical and experimental evidence, showing that coordination algorithms can lead to worse outcomes---even if their use is voluntary---compared to when no coordination algorithms are in place, highlighting the threats of transitioning from decentralized voting to a coordinated democracy.

Dimitrios will also be available to discuss with students who wish to do so.

Dimitrios Xefteris

Dimitrios Xefteris is Assistant Professor of Political Economy at the Department of Economics, University of Cyprus.

He holds an MPhil and a PhD from the International PhD Programme in Economic Analysis at the Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona, and a degree from the Department of International and European Economic and Political Studies at the University of Macedonia.

His research interests include microeconomic theory, game theory, political economy and social choice.
It has been published in leading journals in economics and political science, including the Journal of Economic Theory, the International Economic Review and the American Journal of Political Science.