Proportional Algorithms
Piotr Skowron, University of Warsaw
Course Summary |
About the lecturer |
Study materials and homework |
Location and schedule |
This course offers a comprehensive exploration of proportionality in decision-making, with applications in committee elections, participatory budgeting, and broader social choice contexts. The course begins by introducing proportionality as a foundational principle in fair representation and resource allocation, bridging the gap between mathematical theory and practical applications.
In committee elections, we discuss proportional algorithms for computing winning committees, such as Proportional Approval Voting (PAV) and Single Transferrable Vote (STV), designed to represent diverse preferences fairly, ensuring that minority voices maintain influence alongside majority power. We will examine proportionality's impact on inclusive decision-making and how these models balance equity with efficiency. In participatory budgeting, proportionality mechanisms are explored to achieve fair fund distribution across competing community projects, ensuring decisions reflect varied stakeholder priorities. This part of the course dives into allocation models that equitably balance community preferences with budget constraints. Finally, guided by theoretical frameworks from recent research, we delve into a general topic of group fairness in social choice. This segment provides participants with a deeper understanding of proportionality and its various applications.
About the lecturer:Piotr Skowron is an Associate Professor at the University of Warsaw, specializing in computational social choice. His research is centered on fair representation, with notable contributions to the theory of committee elections and participatory budgeting. Skowron received his Ph.D. in computer science from the University of Warsaw in 2015, with a dissertation that was recognized by the IFAAMAS Victor Lesser Distinguished Dissertation Award. He did his post-docs at the University of Oxford and Technische Universität Berlin. For his contributions to the theory of committee elections he received the prestigious IJCAI Computers and Thought Award in 2020 and the Social Choice and Welfare Prize in 2024. Among his practical contributions is the development of the Method of Equal Shares, a proportional election method used in participatory budgeting in several European cities.
Study materials and homework:
Lecture 1
Lecture 2
Lecture 3
Lecture 4
Lecture 5
Video - Generalized theory of proportionality in collective decision making
Homework assignment
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