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Voting Chances Instead of Voting Weights

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  • Paolo Di Giannatale, Francesco Passarelli

Abstract

We study political distortions that emerge in situations where agents' political power is disproportionate with respect to their economic power. We provide a precise definition which adopts the same measure unit, the Shapley value, to evaluate both the economic and the political power. We show that usual weighted majority voting cannot prevent political distortions from emerging in a huge mass of situations. We propose an alternative voting method based on random assignments of voting rights. Agents are given chances to vote instead of weights. If chances are computed according to a specific formula, no political distortion occurs. As an application, we analyze the rotation voting system recently adopted by the European Central Bank. We find that this system yields an enormous amount of political distortion. Then we compute the voting chances that should be assigned to countries in order to eliminate it.

Suggested Citation

  • Paolo Di Giannatale, Francesco Passarelli, 2011. "Voting Chances Instead of Voting Weights," ISLA Working Papers 40, ISLA, Centre for research on Latin American Studies and Transition Economies, Universita' Bocconi, Milano, Italy.
  • Handle: RePEc:slp:islawp:islawp40
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    1. Alesina, Alberto & Passarelli, Francesco, 2014. "Regulation versus taxation," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 110(C), pages 147-156.
    2. Marco Alderighi & Christophe Feder, 2014. "Political competition, power allocation and welfare in unitary and federal systems," Working Paper series 23_14, Rimini Centre for Economic Analysis.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Voting power; Economic power; Political distortions; Voting rules; Weighted votes; Shapley value; Shapley Shubik index; European Central Bank;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • C71 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Game Theory and Bargaining Theory - - - Cooperative Games
    • 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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