arXiv subjects

Stefan Napel

Publications and source records attributed to Stefan Napel.

11 recordsLinked to original sources

arXiv2022

The Art and Beauty of Voting Power

We exhibit the hidden beauty of weighted voting and voting power by applying a generalization of the Penrose-Banzhaf index to social choice rules. Three players who have multiple votes in a committee decide between three options by plurality rule, Borda's rule, antiplurality rule, or one of the scoring rules in between. A priori influence on outcomes is quantified in terms of how players' probabilities to be pivotal for the committee decision compare to a dictator. The resulting numbers are represented in triangles that map out structurally equivalent voting weights. Their geometry and color variation reflect fundamental differences between voting rules, such as their inclusiveness and transparency.

cs.GT↗

arXiv2019

Influence in Weighted Committees

A committee's decisions on more than two alternatives much depend on the adopted voting method, and so does the distribution of power among the committee members. We investigate how different aggregation methods such as plurality runoff, Borda count, or Copeland rule map asymmetric numbers of seats, shares, voting weights, etc. to influence on outcomes when preferences vary. A generalization of the Penrose-Banzhaf power index is proposed and applied to the IMF Executive Board's election of a Managing Director, extending a priori voting power analysis from binary simple voting games to choice in weighted committees.

cs.GT↗

arXiv2019

Dimension of the Lisbon voting rules in the EU Council: a challenge and new world record

The new voting system of the Council of the European Union cannot be represented as the intersection of six or fewer weighted games, i.e., its dimension is at least 7. This sets a new record for real-world voting bodies. A heuristic combination of different discrete optimization methods yields a representation as the intersection of 13368 weighted games. Determination of the exact dimension is posed as a challenge to the community. The system's Boolean dimension is proven to be 3.

math.OC↗

arXiv2019

Weighted Committee Games

Many binary collective choice situations can be described as weighted simple voting games. We introduce weighted committee games to model decisions on an arbitrary number of alternatives in analogous fashion. We compare the effect of different voting weights (share-holdings, party seats, etc.) under plurality, Borda, Copeland, and antiplurality rule. The number and geometry of weight equivalence classes differ widely across the rules. Decisions can be much more sensitive to weights in Borda committees than (anti-)plurality or Copeland ones.

math.CO↗

arXiv2018

The roll call interpretation of the Shapley value

The Shapley value is commonly illustrated by roll call votes in which players support or reject a proposal in sequence. If all sequences are equiprobable, a voter's Shapley value can be interpreted as the probability of being pivotal, i.e., to bring about the required majority or to make this impossible for others. We characterize the joint probability distributions over cooperation patterns that permit this roll call interpretation: individual votes may be interdependent but must be exchangeable.

cs.GT↗

arXiv2017

The nucleolus of large majority games

Members of a shareholder meeting or legislative committee have greater or smaller voting power than meets the eye if the nucleolus of the induced majority game differs from the voting weight distribution. We establish a new sufficient condition for the weight and power distributions to be equal; and we characterize the limit behavior of the nucleolus in case all relative weights become small.

math.OC↗

arXiv2016

Fair Representation and a Linear Shapley Rule

When delegations to an assembly or council represent differently sized constituencies, they are often allocated voting weights which increase in population numbers (EU Council, US Electoral College, etc.). The Penrose square root rule (PSRR) is the main benchmark for fair representation of all bottom-tier voters in the top-tier decision making body, but rests on the restrictive assumption of independent binary decisions. We consider intervals of alternatives with single-peaked preferences instead, and presume positive correlation of local voters. This calls for a replacement of the PSRR by a linear Shapley rule: representation is fair if the Shapley value of the delegates is proportional to their constituency sizes.

cs.GT↗

arXiv2014

Mostly Sunny: A Forecast of Tomorrow's Power Index Research

Power index research has been a very active field in the last decades. Will this continue or are all the important questions solved? We argue that there are still many opportunities to conduct useful research with and on power indices. Positive and normative questions keep calling for theoretical and empirical attention. Technical and technological improvements are likely to boost applicability.

cs.GT↗

arXiv2013

The Prediction value

We introduce the prediction value (PV) as a measure of players' informational importance in probabilistic TU games. The latter combine a standard TU game and a probability distribution over the set of coalitions. Player $i$'s prediction value equals the difference between the conditional expectations of $v(S)$ when $i$ cooperates or not. We characterize the prediction value as a special member of the class of (extended) values which satisfy anonymity, linearity and a consistency property. Every $n$-player binomial semivalue coincides with the PV for a particular family of probability distributions over coalitions. The PV can thus be regarded as a power index in specific cases. Conversely, some semivalues -- including the Banzhaf but not the Shapley value -- can be interpreted in terms of informational importance.

cs.GT↗

arXiv2012

On the Egalitarian Weights of Nations

Voters from m disjoint constituencies (regions, federal states, etc.) are represented in an assembly which contains one delegate from each constituency and applies a weighted voting rule. All agents are assumed to have single-peaked preferences over an interval; each delegate's preferences match his constituency's median voter; and the collective decision equals the assembly's Condorcet winner. We characterize the asymptotic behavior of the probability of a given delegate determining the outcome (i.e., being the weighted median of medians) in order to address a contentious practical question: which voting weights w_1, ..., w_m ought to be selected if constituency sizes differ and all voters are to have a priori equal influence on collective decisions? It is shown that if ideal point distributions have identical median M and are suitably continuous, the probability for a given delegate i's ideal point λ_i being the Condorcet winner becomes asymptotically proportional to i's voting weight w_i times λ_i's density at M as $m\to \infty$. Indirect representation of citizens is approximately egalitarian for weights proportional to the square root of constituency sizes if all individual ideal points are i.i.d. In contrast, weights that are linear in-- or, better, induce a Shapley value linear in-- size are egalitarian when preferences are sufficiently strongly affiliated within constituencies.

cs.GT↗

arXiv2012

Heuristic and exact solutions to the inverse power index problem for small voting bodies

Power indices are mappings that quantify the influence of the members of a voting body on collective decisions a priori. Their nonlinearity and discontinuity makes it difficult to compute inverse images, i.e., to determine a voting system which induces a power distribution as close as possible to a desired one. This paper considers approximations and exact solutions to this inverse problem for the Penrose-Banzhaf index, which are obtained by enumeration and integer linear programming techniques. They are compared to the results of three simple solution heuristics. The heuristics perform well in absolute terms but can be improved upon very considerably in relative terms. The findings complement known asymptotic results for large voting bodies and may improve termination criteria for local search algorithms.

math.CO↗