I already emitted various criticisms of Eric Maskin... http://www.rangevoting.org/MaskinArrow.html http://www.rangevoting.org/Maskin.html http://www.rangevoting.org/NewSciMcKenna.html Maskin sometimes has favored Black's method (e.g. in a Scientific American piece he wrote which actually refused to specify the voting method he was "advocating" but by reading between the lines I think he meant Black, see middle URL above); but he also has been quoted as instead advocating Copeland's method, e.g. see the last URL above.
As far as I can tell, Maskin thinks (and/or others think) he is incredibly wise in the ways of voting, since he got a Nobel Prize in Economics and was a student of Arrow's. But actually, he knows very little about voting and the few things he has written on the topic are (a) unimportant and (b) rife with errors and massive omissions. Furthermore, whenever somebody actually expert on the topic tries to correspond with him, i.e. me, he never replies. Your mileage may vary, but I've been highly disappointed in Maskin so far. Range voting produces more Condorcet winners than Condorcet methods produce (in simulations involving strategic voters). This is a refutation of Maskin's argument, or at least highly impactful on it (anyhow at the very least, it needs to be discussed). Maskin, of course, ignores it, as he has ignored essentially every communication from me. I just have a hard time taking him seriously as a voting scientist when he behaves in that fashion. The "Nobel Prize" in Economics has caused a lot of damage (certainly amounting to the equivalent of killing thousands of people). [And it actually is not a Nobel prize, although it commonly is claimed to be. I have a sneaking suspicion if Nobel could be reincarnated he'd be furious they created a "Nobel Prize in Economics."] -- Warren D. Smith http://RangeVoting.org <-- add your endorsement (by clicking "endorse" as 1st step) and math.temple.edu/~wds/homepage/works.html ---- Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
