Potential and ‘Power of a Collectivity to Act’<Superscript>*</Superscript>

This paper connects two notions: Hart and Mas-Colell’s ‘potential’, related to the value of coalitional games, and Coleman’s earlier notion of ‘power of a collectivity to act’, related to the easiness to make decisions by means of a voting rule. ^*This research has been supported by the Spanish Ministerio de Ciencia y Tecnología under project BEC2000-0875, and by the Universidad del País Vasco under project UPV/EHU000031.321-HA-7918/2000. The first author acknowledges financial support from the Spanish Ministerio de Ciencia y Tecnología under the Ramón y Cajal programme.     

The role of risk preferences in bargaining when acceptance of a proposal requires less than unanimous approval

The role of risk preferences in determining the outcome to bargaining is examined for the case in which acceptance of a proposal requires less than unanimous approval. Using an n-agent extension of the Ståhl-Rubinstein alternating offer model, we find that risk preferences play a fundamentally different role when bargaining is settled using a nonunanimity voting rule. Risk preferences determine not only an agent's reservation price but also the likelihood that he is made part of the winning coalition. An implication of this analysis is that when the preferences of the agents are not too diverse, it is advantageous for an agent to be relatively risk-averse.The helpful comments and suggestions of Rich McLean and an anonymous referee are gratefully acknowledged. This article was presented as a paper at the 1988 Winter Econometric Society Meetings.     

A Shortcut Method of Calculating the Distribution of Election Outcome Types Under Approval Voting

The paper applies to approval voting, under which the voter casts a ballot by casting one vote for each of k candidates, wherek=;1,2, , m–1 and there are m candidates. I assume (following Brams and Fishburn) that each of the voter's 2=;–2 strategies is equally likely to be chosen. Election-outcome types include: the m-way tie;(m-1) -way ties with the runner-up trailing by 1,2,,m votes; (m-2)-way ties, and so on. The frequency distribution of outcome types varies only with m and n and is necessary to the calculation of the expected utilities of successive ballots cast, in the same election, by a voter under a variant of approval voting. This variant allows the voter to cast several complete ballots provided that he pays the respective prices, which could reasonably be based on the expected utilities. The paper describes a shortcut method of calculating the distribution of outcome types when m=;4 andn rises to levels that make straightforward calculation computationally infeasible. The shortcut involves the combining of an outcome type, instead of each member of that type, with each of the 14 strategies available to the incremental voter. In going fromn-1 to n, for n3, the number of outcome types increases by a factor of (n+3)/n whereas, the number of combinations of strategies increases by a factor of 14.     

A procedural model of voting

The formal framework of social choice theory is generalized through the introduction of separate representations of preferences and choices. This makes it possible to treat voting as a procedure in which decisions are actually made by interacting participants, rather than as a mere mechanism for aggregation. The extended framework also allows for non-consequentialist preferences that take procedural factors into account. Concepts such as decisiveness, anonymity, neutrality, and stability are redefined for use in the new context. The formal results obtained confirm the universality of strategic voting.     

Independence of irrelevant alternatives in the theory of voting

In social choice theory there has been, and for some authors there still is, a confusion between Arrow'sIndependence of Irrelevant Alternatives (IIA) and somechoice consistency conditions. In this paper we analyze this confusion. It is often thought that Arrow himself was confused, but we show that this is not so. What happened was that Arrow had in mind a condition we callregularity, which implies IIA, but which he could not state formally in his model because his model was not rich enough to permit certain distinctions that would have been necessary. It is the combination of regularity and IIA that he discusses, and the origin of the confusion lies in the fact that if one uses a model that does not permit a distinction between regularity and IIA, regularity looks like a consistency condition, which it is not. We also show that the famous example that proves that Arrow was confused does not prove this at all if it is correctly interpreted.     

加强和完善我国人民代表大会制度的几点思考

人民代表大会制度是我国的根本政治制度。为了体现其优越性 ,在改革开放和社会主义现代化建设中 ,必须通过宣传教育 ,提高人们的思想认识 ,真正树立全国人民代表大会是国家最高权力机关的观念 ;切实加强人民代表大会制度的自身建设 ,完善我国人大的选举制度 ;提高人大代表的素质 ,进一步落实人民代表大会的职权 ,以加强和完善我国人民代表大会制度。     

独立董事效益之研究

通过建构理论模型,诠释了独立董事具监督动机时,聘用不同比例的独立董事对于董事会投票行为的影响;依据模型推导结果,设计了董事会投票行为的实验。理论与实验结果皆证明,聘任独立董事比例愈高,董事会效率愈佳,公司价值愈高。另外,政府法令的完备与独立董事人力市场的健全发展,将促使独立董事具监督动机,使其利益与股东一致。     

Paradoxes in nonparametric tests

This paper is a continuation of one (1992) in which the author studied the paradoxes that can arise when a nonparametric statistical test is used to give an ordering of k samples and the subsets of those samples. This article characterizes the projection paradoxes that can occur when using contingency tables, complete block designs, and tests of dichotomous behaviour of several samples. This is done by examining the “dictionaries” of possible orderings of each of these procedures. Specifically, it is shown that contingency tables and complete block designs, like the Kruskal-Wallis nonparametric test on k samples, minimize the number and kinds of projection paradoxes that can occur; however, using a test of dichotomous behaviour of several samples does not. An analysis is given of two procedures used to determine the ordering of a pair of samples from a set of k samples. It is shown that these two procedures may not have anything in common.     

Achievable Hierarchies In Voting Games

Previous work by Diffo Lambo and Moulen [Theory and Decision 53, 313–325 (2002)] and Felsenthal and Machover [The Measurement of Voting Power, Edward Elgar Publishing Limited (1998)], shows that all swap preserving measures of voting power are ordinally equivalent on any swap robust simple voting game. Swap preserving measures include the Banzhaf, the Shapley–Shubik and other commonly used measures of a priori voting power. In this paper, we completely characterize the achievable hierarchies for any such measure on a swap robust simple voting game. Each possible hierarchy can be induced by a weighted voting game and we provide a constructive proof of this result. In particular, the strict hierarchy is always achievable as long as there are at least five players.     

选民投票的政治心理分析

公共选择理论从经济人的假设出发对选民投票进行分析,认为选民在投票的过程中始终是按照成本-收益原则指导其行为的;认为理性选民假说与伦理选民假说能够解释投票中的悖论。然而从政治心理的角度分析,选民存在着理性与非理性的统一,从选民投票动机及选民利他主义心理等方面分析也证明了公共选择理论关于投票理论的悖论的存在。因此选民投票是理性与非理性、社会习俗、历史文化等多种因素的结果。