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Measures of policy distance and inequality / disproportionality of votes and seats

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  • Colignatus, Thomas

Abstract

Let v be a vector of votes for parties and s a vector of their seats gained in the House of Commons or the House of Representatives. We use a single zero for the lumped category of "Other", of the wasted vote, for parties that got votes but no seats. Let V = 1'v be total turnout and S = 1's the total number of seats, and let w = v / V and z = s / S be the perunages (or per ten or percentages). Let d[w, z] be the inequality / disproportionality of votes and seats. This can be the angle between the vectors (AID) and the sine-diagonal (SDID) measure based upon this. Parties can also be scored with policy vector p, using a "left-to-right" policy scale [0, 10]. A common voter-legislative distance is the weighted average a = p' (z - w). With AID d[w, z] the present paper looks into the properties of d[p w, p z]. The latter term for variable w and z given p works as a disproportionality measure, and for variable p given w and z works as policy congruence. We can define an angular policy distance (APD) pd[w, z, p] that employs this d[p w, p z] properly. The APD is much more sensitive than the weighted average, but Sqrt[Abs[a]] has remarkably similar behaviour.

Suggested Citation

  • Colignatus, Thomas, 2018. "Measures of policy distance and inequality / disproportionality of votes and seats," MPRA Paper 84324, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised 02 Feb 2018.
  • Handle: RePEc:pra:mprapa:84324
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    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Colignatus, Thomas, 2017. "One woman, one vote. Though not in the USA, UK and France," MPRA Paper 82513, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised 08 Nov 2017.
    2. Matt Golder & Jacek Stramski, 2010. "Ideological Congruence and Electoral Institutions," American Journal of Political Science, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 54(1), pages 90-106, January.
    3. Colignatus, Thomas, 2018. "Comparing the Aitchison distance and the angular distance for use as inequality or disproportionality measures for votes and seats," MPRA Paper 84334, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised 03 Feb 2018.
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    1. Colignatus, Thomas, 2018. "Comparing the Aitchison distance and the angular distance for use as inequality or disproportionality measures for votes and seats," MPRA Paper 84334, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised 03 Feb 2018.
    2. Colignatus, Thomas, 2018. "An overview of the elementary statistics of correlation, R-squared, cosine, sine, and regression through the origin, with application to votes and seats for Parliament," MPRA Paper 84722, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised 20 Feb 2018.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Votes; Seats; Electoral System; Policy Distance; Disproportionality; Angular Distance; Sine-Diagonal Inequality / Disproportionality; Loosemore-Hanby; Gallagher; Descriptive Statistics; Education;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • A10 - General Economics and Teaching - - General Economics - - - General
    • D63 - Microeconomics - - Welfare Economics - - - Equity, Justice, Inequality, and Other Normative Criteria and Measurement
    • D71 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - Social Choice; Clubs; Committees; Associations
    • D72 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - Political Processes: Rent-seeking, Lobbying, Elections, Legislatures, and Voting Behavior

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