(New) 15 October 2026, Computational Social Choice Seminar, Zein Pishbin

Abstract

Participatory budgeting lets citizens vote on how public money should be spent. But what happens when project proposers act strategically and combine several projects into a single proposal to increase their chances of receiving funding? We study when such strategic merging is beneficial and how it depends on the voting rule used to select projects. We compare different voting rules theoretically and examine how merging affects voter welfare and fairness.