Books | Equality by lot

Kleroterians in Chicago

Posted on April 5, 2011 by peterstone

As usual, there was a Kleroterian presence at the recent annual meeting of the Midwest Political Science Association. There was a panel featuring one paper by myself and Scott Wentland, another paper by Jan-Willem Burgers, and one more by Melissa Schwartzberg (not sure if she’d call herself a Kleroterian, but she’s definitely sympathetic). Eric MacGilvray chaired the session (ditt0), and we received some excellent comments by Jack Knight. A very successful conference panel, I’d say. We also had an excellent Thai dinner the night before. It was attended by me, Scott, Jan, Eric, and Kleroterian Mindy Peden. I posted a picture of the event on the group’s Facebook page:

The response to the conference paper (which is very much a work in progress) has me thinking that there is a lot more work to be done on the way that randomization can influence political decision-making. Much of that influence comes from the fact that it induces a form of ignorance–it prevents people from knowing something. That can be good or bad; if you select jurors by lot, then you don’t know their race or partisan affiliation, but you also don’t know their intelligence or ability either. The goal of injecting randomness into politics is to ensure as much of the good effects of ignorance while minimizing the potential bad effects. It could take a lot of work to sort all that out, on a theoretical level at least.

Oh, and my book was for sale at the conference as well. Let’s not forget that. Buy your copy today! [Here -Yoram]

Filed under: Books, Sortition | 5 Comments »

Conall Boyle on university admittance: (1) why lotteries?

Posted on March 26, 2011 by Yoram Gat

I do not for one moment disagree with the principle that Merit alone should determine university entrance. Rather it is the form of merit used that I would disagree with.

Conall Boyle, Lotteries for Education

In Lotteries for Education Conall Boyle presents a case for using lotteries to supplement standardized test scores as the criterion for admission to universities. He first informs us that it is an empirical fact that such test scores (somewhat inconsistently, I think, covering both IQ tests and subject area exams) are not only the best predictor of university academic performance and graduation rates (explaining about 50% of the variance), but the only predictor of any validity (interviews and extra-curricular activities, for example, having no predictive power at all). Having made this point, Boyle sees it as his main task to convince his readers that having standardized test scores as the only entrance criterion should be avoided.

This task Boyle approaches in various ways throughout the book. In the ultimate chapter three arguments are presented:

A lottery is a “practical and efficient” way to handle borderline cases. That is, it is an easy way to differentiate between applicants whose scores are identical, or are so close that differences in their expected academic performance are negligible.
Accepting the top-scoring quota every year creates “inter-temporal unfairness” in the sense that the cutoff point will fluctuate from year to year. That is, a student with score x would be admitted one year, but another student with an identical score would not be admitted the next year.
“Balancing risk”: Boyle argues the risk of accepting students who fail to graduate should be balanced against the risk of the students who are not accepted but who would have graduated had they been accepted.

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Filed under: Books, Distribution by lot, schools | 6 Comments »