A method for evaluating the behavior of power indices in weighted plurality games

C. H. Ueng (), Vincent C. H. Chua () and H. C. Huang
Additional contact information
C. H. Ueng: School of Economics and Social Sciences, Singapore Management University, 469 Bukit Timah Road, Singapore 259756
Vincent C. H. Chua: School of Economics and Social Sciences, Singapore Management University, 469 Bukit Timah Road, Singapore 259756
H. C. Huang: Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering, National University of Singapore, 10 Kent Ridge Crescent, Singapore 119260

Social Choice and Welfare, 2002, vol. 19, issue 3, 665-680

Abstract: In this paper, a systematic method to facilitate the comparison of a priori measures of power in an n-player r-candidate (n, r) weighted plurality game is proposed. This method, which exploits the notion of a structure of embedded winning coalitions (SEWC), enables the listing of all power profiles relevant to an (n, r) game under a given index and permits the computation of the probability of occurrence of each of these profiles. The vulnerability of an index to different paradoxes of power can also be systematically studied. For the purpose of illustration, we apply this method to the analysis of four well-known 2-candidate power indices namely the Shapley-Shubik index, the Banzhaf index, the Johnston index and the Deegan-Packel index. In each case, the set of power profiles and the likelihood of occurrence of each of these profiles are enumerated. The superadditivity property of these indices is also studied.

Date: 2002-07-08
Note: Received: 20 October 1999/Accepted: 25 April 2001
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

Downloads: (external link)
http://link.springer.de/link/service/journals/00355/papers/2019003/20190665.pdf (application/pdf)
Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted

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:spr:sochwe:v:19:y:2002:i:3:p:665-680

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.springer. ... c+theory/journal/355

Access Statistics for this article

Social Choice and Welfare is currently edited by Bhaskar Dutta, Marc Fleurbaey, Elizabeth Maggie Penn and Clemens Puppe

More articles in Social Choice and Welfare from Springer, The Society for Social Choice and Welfare Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().