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Showing posts with the label democracy

Decision Making as Output and Bounded Rationality

  The classical economics theories proceed on the assumption of rational agents. Rationality implies the economic agents undertake actions or exercise choices based on the cost-benefit analysis they undertake. The assumption further posits that there exists no information asymmetry and thus the agent is aware of all the costs and benefits associated with the choice he or she has exercised. The behavioral school contested the decision stating the decisions in practice are often irrational. Implied there is a continuous departure from rationality. Rationality in the views of the behavioral school is more an exception to the norm rather a rule. The past posts have discussed the limitations of this view by the behavioral school. Economics has often posited rationality in the context in which the choices are exercised rather than theoretical abstract view of rational action. Rational action in theory seems to be grounded in zero restraint situation yet in practice, there are numerous restra

Elections- US and India- Two Takes

  The US elections of 2020 seem to add a new chapter in their history. The way they seem to conduct elections is hardly an advertisement for the world’s most powerful democracy. Over the last nearly two hundred and fifty years, they have been conducting elections, yet the complaints of manipulation, fraud, extension of voting times, counting delays, and contested ballots do not seem to have gone away. It might be anyone’s game at the time of this writing but what the elections are manifesting is not per se democratic exercise but an outcome driven by the machinery of the state in question. Stealing an election of course in the US is not something unusual but each occasion, it traverse new distances. The memories of the 2000 battle fought in Supreme Court over Florida is still fresh in the mind. The 1960 victory of John F. Kennedy too is attributed to the manipulation that happened in Chicago.   The US elections of 2020 was not just an ordinary battle. It was essentially a battle be