Nature and statistics of majority rankings in a dynamical model of preference aggregation

G.L. Columbu, A. De Martino and A. Giansanti

Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, 2008, vol. 387, issue 5, 1338-1344

Abstract: We present numerical results on a complex dynamical model for the aggregation of many individual rankings of S alternatives by the pairwise majority rule under a deliberative scenario. Agents are assumed to interact when the Kemeny distance between their rankings is smaller than a range R. The main object of interest is the probability that the aggregate (social) ranking is transitive as a function of the interaction range. This quantity is known to decay fast as S increases in the non-interacting case. Here we find that when S>4 such a probability attains a sharp maximum when the interaction range is sufficiently large, in which case it significantly exceeds the corresponding value for a non-interacting system. Furthermore, the situation improves upon increasing S. A possible microscopic mechanism leading to this counterintuitive result is proposed and investigated.

Keywords: Social choice; Condorcet paradox; Pairwise majority rule (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2008
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0378437107011429
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only. Journal offers the option of making the article available online on Science direct for a fee of $3,000

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:phsmap:v:387:y:2008:i:5:p:1338-1344

DOI: 10.1016/j.physa.2007.10.046

Access Statistics for this article

Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications is currently edited by K. A. Dawson, J. O. Indekeu, H.E. Stanley and C. Tsallis

More articles in Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().