On the likelihood of dummy players in weighted majority games

When the number of players is small in a weighted majority voting game, it can occur that one of the players has no influence on the result of the vote, in spite of a strictly positive weight. Such a player is called a “dummy” player in game theory. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the conditions that give rise to such a phenomenon and to compute its likelihood. It is shown that the probability of having a dummy player is surprisingly high and some paradoxical results are observed.     

Weighted Poisson and Semiparametric Kernel Models Applied to Parasite Growth

This work deals with some parametric and semiparametric modeling approaches for count data distributions related to development of spiraling whitefly which is an insect pest collected in Brazzaville, Republic of Congo. In this study, the count data distributions are assumed to be modified Poisson probability mass functions. For the discrete semiparametric associated kernel estimator investigated, its almost sure consistency and asymptotic normality are shown under some asumptions. Some weighted Poisson models (WPD) are applied in comparison with the semiparametric approach for finite samples characterizing the growth of spiraling whitefly. Finally, the discrete semiparametric estimation is simple and effective for estimating any count distribution while WPD are practically more meaningful.     

On the voting power of an alliance and the subsequent power of its members

Even, and in fact chiefly, if two or more players in a voting game have on a binary issue independent opinions, they may have interest to form a single voting alliance giving an average gain of influence for all of them. Here, assuming the usual independence of votes, we first study the alliance voting power and obtain new results in the so-called asymptotic limit for which the number of players is large enough and the alliance weight remains a small fraction of the total of the weights. Then, we propose to replace the voting game inside the alliance by a random game which allows new possibilities. The validity of the asymptotic limit and the possibility of new alliances are examined by considering the decision process in the Council of Ministers of the European Union.     

Le marché a dit. Intermédiaires financiers et managers dans le secteur électrique

The role played in the electricity industry by finance analysts, consultants and rating agencies has received too little attention in research on the liberalization of technical networks. Three arguments are brought forward. First of all, despite any rational argumentation, these intermediaries must be seen as ordinary actors with their interests, drawbacks and cognitive limits. Secondly, they have played an important part in transforming what used to be a tightly regulated industry. Their power mainly derives from their ability to influence the definition of the “right” policies and the production of information prior to decision-making. It takes the concrete form of an oligopoly power over two basic links in the information flow: big operations in the capital market and the ability to make comparisons between firms, sectors and countries and thus recommend the “right” allocation of resources. Thirdly, this quite real power does not have mechanical effects since it reflects a state of equilibrium within the firm, as the case of Suez proves. The relation between markets and firms is more interactive that it seems at first glance.     

The vulnerability of four social choice functions to coalitional manipulation of preferences

The vulnerability of a social choice function to coalitional manipulation of preferences is defined as the proportion of voting situations in which the social choice function can be manipulated by a coalition of individuals. In this paper, we provide exact relations giving the vulnerability of four specific social choice functions (plurality rule, anti-plurality rule, plurality with runoff, anti-plurality with runoff) in three-alternative elections. Plurality with runoff appears to be less vulnerable than the other three rules.     

Building strategy on technological resources and commercial proactiveness: The Gemplus case

This article uses the resource-based framework for analyzing the strategy of Gemplus, a spin-off of the French group Thomson, that has grown by 50 per cent each year since its creation in 1988. Three points are highlighted: (1) Gemplus combined various resources in order to build a distinctive competence base in three areas: smart cards design, mass production and mass customization, commercial capabilities. (2) The company's strategy is two-fold: a constant enlargement of the spectrum of applications of its core product (i.e. the smart card), supported by technology exploitation and commercial awareness, and an aggressive search for new geographical markets, supported by commercial proactiveness. (3) Gemplus continuously nurtures its resource base through a vast network of partners (with means such as R&D and joint-ventures). To summarize, we explain the success of Gemplus by a talented balance between an outside-in and an inside-out approach.     

Does the Public Sector Lead the Wage Evolution in the French Economy?

Has the wage policy of the State in the French public sector (government services and State owned enterprises) had a leading effect on wages in the private sector up until the early 1980s? This paper firstly aims at verifying the existence and analysing the causes of this leading effect. The second aim is to estimate the scope of the changes which took place from the early 1980s. It shows that the wage policy of the State did influence disinflation in the 1980s and early 1990s. Indeed, it not only slowed down the growth of wages in the public sector but, by this means, it also influenced indireclty the growth of wages in the private sector.     

Wavelet deconvolution in a periodic setting

Summary.  Deconvolution problems are naturally represented in the Fourier domain, whereas thresholding in wavelet bases is known to have broad adaptivity properties. We study a method which combines both fast Fourier and fast wavelet transforms and can recover a blurred function observed in white noise with O { n    log ( n )²} steps. In the periodic setting, the method applies to most deconvolution problems, including certain 'boxcar' kernels, which are important as a model of motion blur, but having poor Fourier characteristics. Asymptotic theory informs the choice of tuning parameters and yields adaptivity properties for the method over a wide class of measures of error and classes of function. The method is tested on simulated light detection and ranging data suggested by underwater remote sensing. Both visual and numerical results show an improvement over competing approaches. Finally, the theory behind our estimation paradigm gives a complete characterization of the 'maxiset' of the method: the set of functions where the method attains a near optimal rate of convergence for a variety of L ^p loss functions.     

Second degree Pareto dominance

We present and discuss a binary relation aimed at the study of the re-distribution of income. We characterize, in a number of ways, the set of income allocations that can be reached from an initial allocation through a sequence of pair-wise equalizing transfers, where the sequence contains no flow of income from any donor to anyone else who ends up strictly richer than this donor himself ends up at the outcome of the entire sequence. Thanks are due to Peter Lambert and James Mirrlees for their comments. Thon was with the Department of Economics, University of Macau, when some of the work on this paper was done.     

Early Word Recognition in Sentence Context: French and English 24‐Month‐Olds' Sensitivity to Sentence‐Medial Mispronunciations and Assimilations

Recent work has shown that young children can use fine phonetic detail during the recognition of isolated and sentence‐final words from early in lexical development. The present study investigates 24‐month‐olds' word recognition in sentence‐medial position in two experiments using an Intermodal Preferential Looking paradigm. In Experiment 1, French toddlers detect word‐final voicing mispronunciations (e.g., bu z [by z ] for bu s [by s ] “bus”), and they compensate for native voicing assimilations (e.g., bu z d evant toi [bu zd ?vɑ?twa] “bus in front of you”) in the middle of sentences. Similarly, English toddlers detect word‐final voicing mispronunciations (e.g., shee b for shee p ) in Experiment 2, but they do not compensate for illicit voicing assimilations (e.g., shee b th ere). Thus, French and English 24‐month‐olds can take into account fine phonetic detail even if words are presented in the middle of sentences, and French toddlers show language‐specific compensation abilities for pronunciation variation caused by native voicing assimilation.