Optimal Apportionment

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Koriyama, Yukio; Laslier, Jean-Francois; Mace, Antonin; Treibich, Rafael
• 署名单位: Institut Polytechnique de Paris; Ecole Polytechnique; Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS)
• 刊物名称: JOURNAL OF POLITICAL ECONOMY
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0022-3808
• DOI: 10.1086/670380
• 发表日期: 2013
• 页码: 584-608
• 关键词: decision-rules; Voting power; weights; Deficit

摘要

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.