IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/pkk/wpaper/0903.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Measuring voting power: The paradox of new members vs the null player axiom

Author

Listed:
  • László Á. Kóczy

    (Budapest Tech)

Abstract

Qualified majority voting is used when decisions are made by voters of different sizes. In such situations the voters' influence on decision making is far from obvious; power measures are used for an indication of the decision making ability. Several power measures have been proposed and characterised by simple axioms to help the choice between them. Unfortunately the power measures also feature a number of so-called paradoxes of voting power. In this paper we show that the Paradox of New Members follows from the Null Player Axiom. As a corollary of this result it follows that there does not exist a power measure that satisfies the axiom, while not exhibiting the Paradox.

Suggested Citation

  • László Á. Kóczy, 2009. "Measuring voting power: The paradox of new members vs the null player axiom," Working Paper Series 0903, Óbuda University, Keleti Faculty of Business and Management.
    • Handle: RePEc:pkk:wpaper:0903
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://uni-obuda.hu/users/vecseya/RePEc/pkk/wpaper/0903.pdf
    File Function: Manuscript, 2009
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. László Á. Kóczy, 2006. "Strategic power indices: Quarrelling in coalitions," Working Paper Series 0803, Óbuda University, Keleti Faculty of Business and Management, revised May 2008.
    2. Abraham Neyman & Yair Tauman, 1979. "The Partition Value," Mathematics of Operations Research, INFORMS, vol. 4(3), pages 236-264, August.
    3. Annick Laruelle & Federico Valenciano, 2005. "A critical reappraisal of some voting power paradoxes," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 125(1), pages 17-41, July.
    4. Perez-Castrillo, David & Wettstein, David, 2001. "Bidding for the Surplus : A Non-cooperative Approach to the Shapley Value," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 100(2), pages 274-294, October.
    5. Straffin, Philip Jr., 1994. "Power and stability in politics," Handbook of Game Theory with Economic Applications, in: R.J. Aumann & S. Hart (ed.), Handbook of Game Theory with Economic Applications, edition 1, volume 2, chapter 32, pages 1127-1151, Elsevier.
    6. Julien Reynaud & Fabien Lange & Łukasz Gątarek & Christian Thimann, 2011. "Proximity in Coalition Building," Central European Journal of Economic Modelling and Econometrics, Central European Journal of Economic Modelling and Econometrics, vol. 3(3), pages 111-132, September.
    7. Dan S. Felsenthal & Moshé Machover, 1998. "The Measurement of Voting Power," Books, Edward Elgar Publishing, number 1489.
    8. Shapley, L. S. & Shubik, Martin, 1954. "A Method for Evaluating the Distribution of Power in a Committee System," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 48(3), pages 787-792, September.
    9. Gelman, Andrew & Katz, Jonathan N. & Bafumi, Joseph, 2004. "Standard Voting Power Indexes Do Not Work: An Empirical Analysis," British Journal of Political Science, Cambridge University Press, vol. 34(4), pages 657-674, October.
    10. van Deemen, Adrian & Rusinowska, Agnieszka, 2003. "Paradoxes of Voting Power in Dutch Politics," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 115(1-2), pages 109-137, April.
    11. Gul, Faruk, 1989. "Bargaining Foundations of Shapley Value," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 57(1), pages 81-95, January.
    12. N/A, 2004. "Index for 2004," European Union Politics, , vol. 5(4), pages 511-512, December.
    13. Frechette, Guillaume R. & Kagel, John H. & Morelli, Massimo, 2005. "Gamson's Law versus non-cooperative bargaining theory," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 51(2), pages 365-390, May.
    14. Diermeier, Daniel & Merlo, Antonio, 2004. "An empirical investigation of coalitional bargaining procedures," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 88(3-4), pages 783-797, March.
    15. Pradeep Dubey & Lloyd S. Shapley, 1979. "Mathematical Properties of the Banzhaf Power Index," Mathematics of Operations Research, INFORMS, vol. 4(2), pages 99-131, May.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Kóczy Á., László, 2011. "Lisszaboni kilátások [Lisbon prospects]," Közgazdasági Szemle (Economic Review - monthly of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences), Közgazdasági Szemle Alapítvány (Economic Review Foundation), vol. 0(12), pages 1045-1058.

    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. Kóczy, L.Á., 2006. "Voting Paradoxes and the Human Intuition," Research Memorandum 048, Maastricht University, Maastricht Research School of Economics of Technology and Organization (METEOR).
    2. Zineb Abidi & Matthieu Leprince & Vincent Merlin, 2020. "Power Inequality in Inter-communal Structures: The Simulated Impact of a Reform in the Case of the Municipalities in Western France," Post-Print halshs-02996998, HAL.
    3. Le Breton, Michel & Lepelley, Dominique & Macé, Antonin & Merlin, Vincent, 2017. "Le mécanisme optimal de vote au sein du conseil des représentants d’un système fédéral," L'Actualité Economique, Société Canadienne de Science Economique, vol. 93(1-2), pages 203-248, Mars-Juin.
    4. Fabrice Barthelemy & Mathieu Martin, 2011. "A Comparison Between the Methods of Apportionment Using Power Indices: the Case of the US Presidential Elections," Annals of Economics and Statistics, GENES, issue 101-102, pages 87-106.
    5. Kurz, Sascha & Maaser, Nicola & Napel, Stefan, 2018. "Fair representation and a linear Shapley rule," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 108(C), pages 152-161.
    6. Barua, Rana & Chakravarty, Satya R. & Roy, Sonali, 2006. "On the Coleman indices of voting power," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 171(1), pages 273-289, May.
    7. Annick Laruelle & Federico Valenciano, 2005. "A critical reappraisal of some voting power paradoxes," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 125(1), pages 17-41, July.
    8. Carreras, Francesc & Freixas, Josep, 2008. "On ordinal equivalence of power measures given by regular semivalues," Mathematical Social Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 55(2), pages 221-234, March.
    9. Tasos Kalandrakis, 2006. "Proposal Rights and Political Power," American Journal of Political Science, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 50(2), pages 441-448, April.
    10. László Á. Kóczy, 2018. "Partition Function Form Games," Theory and Decision Library C, Springer, number 978-3-319-69841-0, March.
    11. Barua, Rana & Chakravarty, Satya R. & Sarkar, Palash, 2009. "Minimal-axiom characterizations of the Coleman and Banzhaf indices of voting power," Mathematical Social Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 58(3), pages 367-375, November.
    12. Dennis Leech & Robert Leech, 2006. "Voting power and voting blocs," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 127(3), pages 285-303, June.
    13. Francesco Passarelli, 2007. "Asymmetric Bargaining," ISLA Working Papers 26, ISLA, Centre for research on Latin American Studies and Transition Economies, Universita' Bocconi, Milano, Italy, revised Jan 2007.
    14. Leech, Dennis, 2002. "Computation of Power Indices," The Warwick Economics Research Paper Series (TWERPS) 644, University of Warwick, Department of Economics.
    15. Algaba, E. & Bilbao, J.M. & Fernandez, J.R., 2007. "The distribution of power in the European Constitution," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 176(3), pages 1752-1766, February.
    16. Freixas, Josep & Pons, Montserrat, 2008. "Circumstantial power: Optimal persuadable voters," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 186(3), pages 1114-1126, May.
    17. McQuillin, Ben & Sugden, Robert, 2018. "Balanced externalities and the Shapley value," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 108(C), pages 81-92.
    18. Michel Breton & Karine Straeten, 2015. "Influence versus utility in the evaluation of voting rules: a new look at the Penrose formula," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 165(1), pages 103-122, October.
    19. García-Valiñas, Maria A. & Zaporozhets, Vera, 2015. "Key-drivers of EU budget allocation: Does power matter?," TSE Working Papers 15-548, Toulouse School of Economics (TSE).
    20. Laruelle, Annick & Valenciano, Federico, 2008. "Noncooperative foundations of bargaining power in committees and the Shapley-Shubik index," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 63(1), pages 341-353, May.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    a priori voting power; paradox of new members; null player axiom;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • C71 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Game Theory and Bargaining Theory - - - Cooperative Games
    • D72 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - Political Processes: Rent-seeking, Lobbying, Elections, Legislatures, and Voting Behavior

    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:pkk:wpaper:0903. 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: Alexandra Vécsey (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/gkbmfhu.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.