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Aggregation of Rankings in Figure Skating

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Author Info
Michel Truchon
Abstract

We scrutinize and compare, from the perspective of modern theory of social choice, two rules that have been used to rank competitors in Figure Skating for the past decades. The firs rule has been in use at least from 1982 until 1998, when it was replaced by a new one. We also compare these two rules with the Borda and the Kemeny rules. The four rules are illustrated with examples and with the data of 30 Olympic competitions. The comparisons show that the choice of a rule can have a real impact on the rankings. In these data, we found as many as 19 cycles of the majority relation, involving as many as nine skaters. In this context, the Kemeny rule appears as a natural extension of the Condorcet rule. As a side result, we show that the Copeland rule can be used to partition the skaters in such a way that it suffice to find Kemeny rankings within subsets of the partition that are not singletons and then, to juxtapose these rankings to get a complete Kemeny ranking. We also propose the concept of the mean Kemeny ranking, which when it exists, may obviate the multiplicity of Kemeny rankings. Finally, the fours rules are examined in terms of their manipulability. It appears that the new rule used in Figure Skating may be more difficult to manipulate than the previous one but less so than the Kemeny rule.

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Paper provided by CIRPEE in its series Cahiers de recherche with number 0414.

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Date of creation: 2004
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Handle: RePEc:lvl:lacicr:0414

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Related research
Keywords: Figure skating; ranking rules; vote aggregation; cycles; maximum likelihood; Kemeny; Copeland; Borda; manipulation;

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Find related papers by JEL classification:
D71 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - Social Choice; Clubs; Committees; Associations

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References listed on IDEAS
Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.:
  1. Muller, Eitan & Satterthwaite, Mark A., 1977. "The equivalence of strong positive association and strategy-proofness," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 14(2), pages 412-418, April. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  2. Levin, Jonathan & Nalebuff, Barry, 1995. "An Introduction to Vote-Counting Schemes," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 9(1), pages 3-26, Winter. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  3. Gibbard, Allan, 1973. "Manipulation of Voting Schemes: A General Result," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 41(4), pages 587-601, July. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  4. Young, Peyton, 1995. "Optimal Voting Rules," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 9(1), pages 51-64, Winter. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  5. Barthelemy, J. P. & Guenoche, A. & Hudry, O., 1989. "Median linear orders: Heuristics and a branch and bound algorithm," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 42(3), pages 313-325, October. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  6. Saari, Donald G, 1990. " Susceptibility to Manipulation," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 64(1), pages 21-41, January.
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Cited by:
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  1. Stephen Gordon & Michel Truchon, 2006. "Social Choice, Optimal Inference and Figure Skating," Cahiers de recherche 0624, CIRPEE. [Downloadable!]
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  2. Michel Truchon, 2006. "Borda and the Maximum Likelihood Approach to Vote Aggregation," Cahiers de recherche 0623, CIRPEE. [Downloadable!]
  3. Michel Truchon, 2005. "Aggregation of Rankings: a Brief Review of Distance-Based Rules," Cahiers de recherche 0534, CIRPEE. [Downloadable!]
  4. Michel Truchon & Stephen Gordon, 2006. "Statistical Comparison of Aggregation Rules for Votes," Cahiers de recherche 0625, CIRPEE. [Downloadable!]
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