午夜剧场

Majority rule is strange, isn't it? In the 2000 US presidential election, Gore and Bush, nominated by the two major parties, were competing. Pre-election polls showed Gore in the lead. However, a "third candidate," Nader, entered the race, causing a perfect split in the vote with Gore, and Bush won by taking advantage of the situation. Despite being called majority rule, it doesn't always reflect the majority opinion. Nor does it necessarily respect minority opinions. Alternatives are needed, such as using the Borda count, which assigns points like "3 points for 1st place, 2 for 2nd, and 1 for 3rd," or at least implementing a runoff vote.

I've thought majority rule was strange ever since I was in elementary school. I remember being made to stand in front of the classroom during a class meeting, where a vote was taken on "who thinks Sakai was wrong for messing around." I might have been messing around, but I wasn't wrong. As I was thinking that right and wrong should be determined by logical deduction, I became anemic and was taken to the nurse's office.

The various questions I had as a child are directly connected to my current research. It might sound like a nice story that this led to the 午夜剧场 Award, but it's not that; it's simply that I haven't changed since I was a child.

Social systems are not a given; they are created by humans and have not always been the same. We must not take existing systems for granted. Mathematically designing good systems and adding realistic compromises to them. It has the appeal of changing the way you see the world.

Both markets and voting are "giant calculation boxes." You put in an input, and you get an output. In a market, demand and supply are the inputs, and resource allocation is the output. In voting, ballots are the input, and the election result is the output. It's interesting that both can be treated within the same framework as a calculation box.

However, I myself don't find my research particularly appealing or interesting on a moment-to-moment basis. I calmly prove theorems and write endlessly. I used to be driven solely by passion, but now only deadlines move me. All things are impermanent.

I want you to learn to use words, not be used by them. Language is like a pair of colored glasses. Since you can't go without wearing any, it's good to be able to think from multiple perspectives by wearing two or three pairs. Economics is also a language. It would be great if you could learn to speak it. I want you to study economics properly, but if that's all you do, your perspective might become prejudiced. That's why it's good to read a lot of books. Professor Takashi Inoguchi, a master of empirical political science, says, "Read two tons of books while you're a student," but I won't ask that much. Five kilograms a month, about 60 kilograms a year, is fine. I want students in the Faculty of Economics to devote time to mathematics as well, so that amount is about right. Let's study together.

(Interview conducted in January 2016)