IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/arx/papers/2111.10627.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Calculus of Consent via MARL: Legitimating the Collaborative Governance Supplying Public Goods

Author

Listed:
  • Yang Hu
  • Zhui Zhu
  • Sirui Song
  • Xue Liu
  • Yang Yu

Abstract

Public policies that supply public goods, especially those involve collaboration by limiting individual liberty, always give rise to controversies over governance legitimacy. Multi-Agent Reinforcement Learning (MARL) methods are appropriate for supporting the legitimacy of the public policies that supply public goods at the cost of individual interests. Among these policies, the inter-regional collaborative pandemic control is a prominent example, which has become much more important for an increasingly inter-connected world facing a global pandemic like COVID-19. Different patterns of collaborative strategies have been observed among different systems of regions, yet it lacks an analytical process to reason for the legitimacy of those strategies. In this paper, we use the inter-regional collaboration for pandemic control as an example to demonstrate the necessity of MARL in reasoning, and thereby legitimizing policies enforcing such inter-regional collaboration. Experimental results in an exemplary environment show that our MARL approach is able to demonstrate the effectiveness and necessity of restrictions on individual liberty for collaborative supply of public goods. Different optimal policies are learned by our MARL agents under different collaboration levels, which change in an interpretable pattern of collaboration that helps to balance the losses suffered by regions of different types, and consequently promotes the overall welfare. Meanwhile, policies learned with higher collaboration levels yield higher global rewards, which illustrates the benefit of, and thus provides a novel justification for the legitimacy of, promoting inter-regional collaboration. Therefore, our method shows the capability of MARL in computationally modeling and supporting the theory of calculus of consent, developed by Nobel Prize winner J. M. Buchanan.

Suggested Citation

  • Yang Hu & Zhui Zhu & Sirui Song & Xue Liu & Yang Yu, 2021. "Calculus of Consent via MARL: Legitimating the Collaborative Governance Supplying Public Goods," Papers 2111.10627, arXiv.org.
  • Handle: RePEc:arx:papers:2111.10627
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://arxiv.org/pdf/2111.10627
    File Function: Latest version
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Gordon Brown & Daniel Susskind, 0. "International cooperation during the COVID-19 pandemic," Oxford Review of Economic Policy, Oxford University Press, vol. 36(Supplemen), pages 64-76.
    2. Gordon Brown & Daniel Susskind, 2020. "International cooperation during the COVID-19 pandemic," Oxford Review of Economic Policy, Oxford University Press and Oxford Review of Economic Policy Limited, vol. 36(Supplemen), pages 64-76.
    3. Barua, Suborna, 2020. "Understanding Coronanomics: The economic implications of the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic," MPRA Paper 99693, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Daniel T. L. Shek, 2021. "COVID-19 and Quality of Life: Twelve Reflections," Applied Research in Quality of Life, Springer;International Society for Quality-of-Life Studies, vol. 16(1), pages 1-11, February.
    2. Patrick Mellacher, 2020. "Cooperation in the Age of COVID-19: Evidence from Public Goods Games," Papers 2011.09189, arXiv.org.
    3. Galiani, Sebastian, 2022. "Pandemic economics," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 193(C), pages 269-275.
    4. Afesorgbor, S.K. & van Bergeijk, P.A.G. & Demena, B.A., 2021. "Does COVID-19 threaten globalization?," ISS Working Papers - General Series 683, International Institute of Social Studies of Erasmus University Rotterdam (ISS), The Hague.
    5. Orietta Nicolis & Jean Paul Maidana & Fabian Contreras & Danilo Leal, 2024. "Analyzing the Impact of COVID-19 on Economic Sustainability: A Clustering Approach," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 16(4), pages 1-30, February.
    6. Sadananda Prusty & Anubha & Saurabh Gupta, 2021. "On the Road to Recovery: The Role of Post-Lockdown Stimulus Package," FIIB Business Review, , vol. 11(2), pages 206-224, June.
    7. Bai, Chenjiang & Duan, Yuejiao & Liu, Congya & Qiu, Leiju, 2022. "International taxation sentiment and COVID-19 crisis," Research in International Business and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 63(C).
    8. Nano Prawoto & Eko Priyo Purnomo & Abitassha Az Zahra, 2020. "The Impacts of Covid-19 Pandemic on Socio-Economic Mobility in Indonesia," International Journal of Economics & Business Administration (IJEBA), International Journal of Economics & Business Administration (IJEBA), vol. 0(3), pages 57-71.
    9. Asif Hussain & Francesc Fusté-Forné, 2021. "Post-Pandemic Recovery: A Case of Domestic Tourism in Akaroa (South Island, New Zealand)," World, MDPI, vol. 2(1), pages 1-12, March.
    10. Dusko Ursic & Andrej Smogavc Cestar, 2022. "Crisis Management and CSR in Slovenian Companies: The Impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(5), pages 1-16, February.
    11. Todd Sandler, 2023. "COVID-19 Activities: Publicness and Strategic Concerns," Games, MDPI, vol. 14(1), pages 1-19, January.
    12. Arielle Kaim & Tuvia Gering & Amiram Moshaiov & Bruria Adini, 2021. "Deciphering the COVID-19 Health Economic Dilemma (HED): A Scoping Review," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 18(18), pages 1-13, September.
    13. Eryarsoy, Enes & Kilic, Huseyin Selcuk & Zaim, Selim & Doszhanova, Marzhan, 2022. "Assessing IoT challenges in supply chain: A comparative study before and during- COVID-19 using interval valued neutrosophic analytical hierarchy process," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 147(C), pages 108-123.
    14. Hamdy M. Ahmed & Reda A. Elbarkouky & Othman A. M. Omar & Maria Alessandra Ragusa, 2021. "Models for COVID-19 Daily Confirmed Cases in Different Countries," Mathematics, MDPI, vol. 9(6), pages 1-13, March.
    15. Polina Popova & Maria Semenova & Vladimir Sokolov, 2023. "Covid-19 And Retail Depositor Strategies In Russian Regions: Whether To Withdraw And Why?," HSE Working papers WP BRP 92/FE/2023, National Research University Higher School of Economics.
    16. Wang, Yupeng & Shimokawa, Satoru, 2024. "A trade-off between lives and the economy? Subsidizing dining out under the COVID-19 pandemic in Japan," Food Policy, Elsevier, vol. 124(C).
    17. Saeed, Asif & Chaudhry, Sajid M. & Arif, Ahmed & Ahmed, Rizwan, 2023. "Spillover of energy commodities and inflation in G7 plus Chinese economies," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 127(PA).
    18. Elnahass, Marwa & Trinh, Vu Quang & Li, Teng, 2021. "Global banking stability in the shadow of Covid-19 outbreak," Journal of International Financial Markets, Institutions and Money, Elsevier, vol. 72(C).
    19. Amir Junaid Shah & Shahzada Khurram Iqbal & Muhammad Iftikhar & Asmat Tahira Ali & Shumaila Naz & Muhammad Naeem Shaukat & Syeda Khalida & Muhammad Waqas Ahmad & Naghma Parveen, 2022. "Critical Analysis Of The Economic Effect Of Covid-19 On Sports Industry: A Comprehensive View Of Pakistani Sports Goods," Bulletin of Business and Economics (BBE), Research Foundation for Humanity (RFH), vol. 11(1), pages 243-246.
    20. Arturas Kaklauskas & Edmundas Kazimieras Zavadskas & Natalija Lepkova & Saulius Raslanas & Kestutis Dauksys & Ingrida Vetloviene & Ieva Ubarte, 2021. "Sustainable Construction Investment, Real Estate Development, and COVID-19: A Review of Literature in the Field," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(13), pages 1-42, July.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:arx:papers:2111.10627. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: arXiv administrators (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://arxiv.org/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.