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Welfarist evaluations of decision rules for boards of representatives

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Abstract

We consider a decision board with representatives who vote on proposals on behalf of their constituencies. We look for decision rules that realize utilitarian and (welfarist) egalitarian ideals. We set up a simple model and obtain roughly the following results. If the interests of people from the same constituency are uncorrelated, then a weighted rule with square root weights does best in terms of both ideals. If there are perfect correlations, then the utilitarian ideal requires proportional weights, whereas the egalitarian ideal requires equal weights. We investigate correlations that are in between these extremes and provide analytic arguments to connect our results to Barberà and Jackson (J Polit Econ 114(2):317–339, 2006) and to Banzhaf voting power.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute of Philosophy, Faculty 14, University of Dortmund, D-44221, Dortmund, Germany

    Claus Beisbart

  2. Department of Philosophy, Logic and Scientific Method, London School of Economics and Political Science, Houghton Street, London, WC2A 2AE, UK

    Luc Bovens

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  1. Claus Beisbart
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  2. Luc Bovens
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Correspondence to Luc Bovens.

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Beisbart, C., Bovens, L. Welfarist evaluations of decision rules for boards of representatives. Soc Choice Welfare 29, 581–608 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00355-007-0246-z

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00355-007-0246-z

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