Optimal Apportionment

Yukio Koriyama, Jean-François Laslier, Antonin Macé and Rafael Treibich

Journal of Political Economy, 2013, vol. 121, issue 3, 584 - 608

Abstract: This paper provides a theoretical foundation that supports the degressive proportionality principle in apportionment problems, such as the allocation of seats in a federal parliament. The utility assigned by an individual to a constitutional rule is a function of the frequency with which each collective decision matches the individual's own will. The core of the argument is that, if the function is concave, then classical utilitarianism at the social level recommends decision rules that exhibit degressive proportionality with respect to the population size.

Date: 2013
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (36)

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Working Paper: Optimal Apportionment (2013)
Working Paper: Optimal Apportionment (2012)
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