Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/230465 
Year of Publication: 
2019
Series/Report no.: 
ISER Discussion Paper No. 1059
Publisher: 
Osaka University, Institute of Social and Economic Research (ISER), Osaka
Abstract: 
This paper considers collective decision-making when individuals are partitioned into groups (e.g., states or parties) endowed with voting weights. We study a game in which each group chooses an internal rule that specifies the allocation of its weight to the alternatives as a function of its members' preferences. We show that under quite general conditions, the game is a Prisoner's Dilemma: while the winner-take-all rule is a dominant strategy, the equilibrium is Pareto dominated. We also show asymptotic Pareto dominance of the proportional rule. Our numerical computation for the US Electoral College verifies the sensibility of the asymptotic results.
Subjects: 
Representative democracy
winner-take-all rule
proportional rule
JEL: 
C72
D70
D72
Document Type: 
Working Paper

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