IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ind/igiwpp/2019-014.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Measuring electoral competitiveness: A Probability ratio index

Author

Listed:
  • Satya R. Chakravarty

    (Indian Statistical Institute, Kolkata)

  • Manipushpak Mitra

    (Indian Statistical Institute, Kolkata)

  • Suresh Mutuswami

    (University of Leicester)

  • Rupayan Pal

    (Indira Gandhi Institute of Development Research)

Abstract

We propose an index of electoral competition based on the vote shares of parties competing in the election. This index is the ratio between the probabilities that the two voters drawn at random with (without) replacement have voted for different parties under actual vote shares across the competing parties and under equal vote shares across them. The measure is characterized using two simple axioms, consistency in aggregation and competitive indifference. The former expresses the index as a weighted sum of competitiveness in two party elections. The latter is concerned with redistribution of vote shares across parties.

Suggested Citation

  • Satya R. Chakravarty & Manipushpak Mitra & Suresh Mutuswami & Rupayan Pal, 2019. "Measuring electoral competitiveness: A Probability ratio index," Indira Gandhi Institute of Development Research, Mumbai Working Papers 2019-014, Indira Gandhi Institute of Development Research, Mumbai, India.
    • Handle: RePEc:ind:igiwpp:2019-014
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.igidr.ac.in/pdf/publication/WP-2019-014.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Fleurbaey,Marc & Maniquet,François, 2011. "A Theory of Fairness and Social Welfare," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521715348.
    2. Carles Boix, 1999. "Setting the rules of the game: The choice of electoral systems in advanced democracies," Economics Working Papers 367, Department of Economics and Business, Universitat Pompeu Fabra.
    3. Herve Moulin, 2004. "Fair Division and Collective Welfare," MIT Press Books, The MIT Press, edition 1, volume 1, number 0262633116, December.
    4. Adam Przeworski & Fernando Limongi, 1993. "Political Regimes and Economic Growth," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 7(3), pages 51-69, Summer.
    5. Bardhan, Pranab & Yang, Tsung-Tao, 2004. "Political Competition in Economic Perspective," Department of Economics, Working Paper Series qt1907c39n, Department of Economics, Institute for Business and Economic Research, UC Berkeley.
    6. Wright, Joseph, 2008. "Political Competition and Democratic Stability in New Democracies," British Journal of Political Science, Cambridge University Press, vol. 38(2), pages 221-245, April.
    7. Alessandro Lizzeri & Nicola Persico, 2005. "A Drawback Of Electoral Competition," Journal of the European Economic Association, MIT Press, vol. 3(6), pages 1318-1348, December.
    8. Foster, James E., 1983. "An axiomatic characterization of the Theil measure of income inequality," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 31(1), pages 105-121, October.
    9. Bourguignon, Francois, 1979. "Decomposable Income Inequality Measures," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 47(4), pages 901-920, July.
    10. Donaldson, David & Weymark, John A., 1980. "A single-parameter generalization of the Gini indices of inequality," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 22(1), pages 67-86, February.
    11. Boix, Carles, 1999. "Setting the Rules of the Game: The Choice of Electoral Systems in Advanced Democracies," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 93(3), pages 609-624, September.
    12. Kirchgassner, Gebhard & Himmern, Anne Meyer Zu, 1997. "Expected Closeness and Turnout: An Empirical Analysis for the German General Elections, 1983-1994," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 91(1), pages 3-25, April.
    13. Henri Capron & Jean-Louis Kruseman, 1988. "Is political rivalry an incentive to vote?," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 56(1), pages 31-43, January.
    14. Giebler, Heiko & Banducci, Susan & Kritzinger, Sylvia, 2017. "New perspectives on information and electoral competition," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, vol. 52(4), pages 429-435.
    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. Satya R. Chakravarty & Manipushpak Mitra & Suresh Mutuswami & Rupayan Pal, 2020. "On the probability ratio index as a measure of electoral competition," Palgrave Communications, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 6(1), pages 1-6, December.
    2. Giebler, Heiko & Banducci, Susan & Kritzinger, Sylvia, 2017. "New perspectives on information and electoral competition," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, vol. 52(4), pages 429-435.
    3. Satya R. Chakravarty & Pietro Muliere, 2003. "Welfare indicators: A review and new perspectives. 1. Measurement of inequality," Metron - International Journal of Statistics, Dipartimento di Statistica, Probabilità e Statistiche Applicate - University of Rome, vol. 0(3), pages 457-497.
    4. Stefan Voigt, 2011. "Positive constitutional economics II—a survey of recent developments," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 146(1), pages 205-256, January.
    5. Foster, James E. & Shneyerov, Artyom A., 2000. "Path Independent Inequality Measures," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 91(2), pages 199-222, April.
    6. Ebert, Udo, 2010. "The decomposition of inequality reconsidered: Weakly decomposable measures," Mathematical Social Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 60(2), pages 94-103, September.
    7. Buhong Zheng, 2021. "Stochastic dominance and decomposable measures of inequality and poverty," Journal of Public Economic Theory, Association for Public Economic Theory, vol. 23(2), pages 228-247, April.
    8. Nahapetyan Yervand, 2019. "The benefits of the Velvet Revolution in Armenia: Estimation of the short-term economic gains using deep neural networks," Central European Economic Journal, Sciendo, vol. 53(6), pages 286-303, January.
    9. Casilda Lasso de la Vega & Ana Urrutia & Oscar Volij, 2011. "An Axiomatic Characterization Of The Theil Inequality Order," Working Papers 1103, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Department of Economics.
    10. Guido Erreygers & Roselinde Kessels & Linkun Chen & Philip Clarke, 2016. "Decomposing Socioeconomic Inequality of Health," EcoMod2016 9574, EcoMod.
    11. George Tridimas, 2011. "A political economy perspective of direct democracy in ancient Athens," Constitutional Political Economy, Springer, vol. 22(1), pages 58-82, March.
    12. David Hugh-Jones, 2008. "Explaining Institutional Change: Why Elected Politicians Implement Direct Democracy," Jena Economics Research Papers 2008-085, Friedrich-Schiller-University Jena.
    13. Timothy Besley & Torsten Persson, 2011. "Pillars of Prosperity: The Political Economics of Development Clusters," Economics Books, Princeton University Press, edition 1, number 9624.
    14. Xefteris, Dimitrios & Matakos, Kostas, 2009. "An Economic Model of Strategic Electoral Rule Choice Under Uncertainty," The Warwick Economics Research Paper Series (TWERPS) 917, University of Warwick, Department of Economics.
    15. Koen Decancq & Erik Schokkaert, 2016. "Beyond GDP: Using Equivalent Incomes to Measure Well-Being in Europe," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 126(1), pages 21-55, March.
    16. Antonio Villar Notario, 2001. "Multidimensional Inequality And Social Welfare," Working Papers. Serie AD 2001-30, Instituto Valenciano de Investigaciones Económicas, S.A. (Ivie).
    17. Frankel, David M. & Volij, Oscar, 2011. "Measuring school segregation," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 146(1), pages 1-38, January.
    18. Carlos Scartascini & Mariano Tommasi & Ernesto Stein, 2010. "Veto Players and Policy Trade-Offs- An Intertemporal Approach to Study the Effects of Political Institutions on Policy," Research Department Publications 4660, Inter-American Development Bank, Research Department.
    19. Sorger, Gerhard & Stark, Oded, 2013. "Income redistribution going awry: The reversal power of the concern for relative deprivation," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 86(C), pages 1-9.
    20. Carlos Scartascini & Mariano Tommasi & Ernesto H. Stein, 2008. "Veto Players, Intertemporal Interactions and Policy Adaptability: How Do Political Institutions Work?," Research Department Publications 4593, Inter-American Development Bank, Research Department.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    electoral competition; probability ratio index; electoral concentration; political heterogeneity;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D72 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - Political Processes: Rent-seeking, Lobbying, Elections, Legislatures, and Voting Behavior
    • P16 - Political Economy and Comparative Economic Systems - - Capitalist Economies - - - Capitalist Institutions; Welfare State

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:ind:igiwpp:2019-014. 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: Shamprasad M. Pujar (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/igidrin.html .

    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.