A New Axiomatization of the Banzhaf Index for Games with Abstention

(3, 2)-Simple games are a model for voting situation in which players can vote not only in favour or against a proposal but they can also abstain. Also in this model, power indices are used to evaluate the power of players. In particular, the Banzhaf index and the Shapley–Shubik index have been generalized to define analogous power indices in the context of games with abstention. In this work we provide a new axiomatization of the Banzhaf index for games with abstention, to underline its properties and increase the justification of the use of this index as a solution concept also in the family of games with abstention.     

Purchase power: An examination of consumption as voting

Abstract

There has been a reported increase in political activity through the marketplace in the form of ‘consumer votes’. The use of marketplace votes by consumers to address their concerns about societal issues is a phenomenon that has growing relevance for firms, since they are often affected by such consumer citizenship. Therefore, this paper aims to enhance our conceptual understanding of the consumer voting phenomenon. It explores marketplace power relations and the constraints and enabling mechanisms they may pose to consumers seeking change through consumer voting. Consumer voting practices, consumer sovereignty discourses, and power tensions in marketplace encounters are examined in relation to Foucault's notions of power, technologies of the self, and governmentality. Foucault provides a critical lens to illuminate the potential for consumer resistance, an approach that so far has been somewhat neglected by the extant marketing and consumer research literature.     

A Voting Mechanism Designed for Talent Shows in Mass Media: Weighted Preference of Group Decision Makers in Social Networks Using Fuzzy Measures and Choquet Integral

As the development of social networks tends to shape people’s view about choices, decision making theories are challenged by numerous unprecedented difficulties, from both the theories and practice. One hot topic is how to design a voting mechanism for talent shows in mass media that not only attracts public attention but also reflects an objective and fair principle. Weighted voting, where the voting power of a representative is proportional to the population in his or her district, has been widely adopted in legislative selections and talent show competitions. However, weighted voting system may cause disenfranchisement of some representatives and reduce the entertainment and interest of talent shows because of the ignorance of complex interactions among the representatives. In this paper, possible interactions among representatives are analyzed by investigating the associated social networks and subsequently some fuzzy measures are utilized to quantify these interactions. Specifically, the weights determination model is adopted in this situation for defining fuzzy measures to avoid the disenfranchisement, and a multiple-group hierarchy decision model is developed to solve social network group decision making problems where the Choquet integral is employed to reduce the impact from synergy and redundancy between representatives. Moreover, a voting mechanism for talent shows in mass media is provided. Finally, an illustrative example, and a close look at the current algorithmic issues and future trends from different angles are provided.

     

The use and abuse of executive powers in warding off corporate raiders

As corporate raids become more prevalent, top corporate executives have asked for and often received additional executive power to ward off raiders or “sharks”. For example, they have been given the use of “shark repellents” such as staggered elections for board members, cumulative voting, super majority voting requirements, and the power to sell off the firm's “crown jewels”. Are they abusing these powers as they attempt to save their jobs, at the expense of stockholders, by driving off the corporate raiders who might unseat ineffective management? In this article the practices being used by entrenched managers to make their firms less attractive to raiders and the defense tactics they are using in corporate takeover battles are examined from an ethical viewpoint.     

亲情原则还是能力取向?——家族上市公司权力配置机制的实证研究

本文以2008年187家狭义家族上市公司中的572位家族成员作为研究对象,借助改良的五等亲分类方法,从所有权、投票权及管理权三个维度探讨家族成员内部权力配置结构的影响机制。研究发现,亲缘关系对所有权和投票权的分配影响显著,亲情原则显露无疑,但管理权的分配并未呈现类似特征;个人的能力因素在管理权配置中的正向影响大于在所有权和投票权配置中的影响,但对整个权力配置体系而言并不存在显著的正向调节效应。     

Corporate ownership and control contestability in emerging markets: The case of Colombia

This study examines the structure of voting control and blockholders’ contestability for a sample of 233 non-financial listed firms in Colombia during 1996–2004. Corporate control is characterized by high ownership concentration and blockholder power, which implies low separation ratios between cash flow rights and voting rights. On average the separation ratios for the largest voting block is 0.95, while that for the fourth largest shareholder is 0.75. Corporate control is privately biased when there is direct monitoring of firm management by controlling owners. Regression results show that a more equal distribution of equity among large blockholders has a positive effect on firm value. Contestability matters most when firm shares are liquid and actively traded on the stock market. This finding is reinforced when the probability that the largest block can form a winning coalition decreases and performance variables, such as market to sales ratio and return on equity, are included in the estimating equations as substitutes for firm value. In addition, our estimations provide evidence that diversion of rents (tunneling) is limited by blockholders’ contestability.     

Shareholder voting rights in early American corporations

In early American corporations, the power of large shareholders was frequently limited by voting rules that partially disenfranchised them. In particular, stock held in an individual's name was granted a number of votes per share that decreased with the number of shares held. Using data from the corporations created in New York up to 1825, this paper analyses the use of these ‘graduated’ voting rights. Consistent with the view that they were intended to help small investors protect themselves against the predations of controlling shareholders, the data indicate that graduated voting rights were imposed in industries that attracted small investments from ordinary households. The results highlight the importance of concerns over the controlling influence of large shareholders in early corporate governance.     

Decisional Power in Group Decision Making: A Note on the Allocation of Group Members' Weights in the Multiplicative AHP and SMART

Many complex decisions are made in a group environment, where the decision is made jointly by a committee or group structure. The individual group members are often not equally qualified to contribute equitably to the decision process, or may have different saliences (desires) to influence the decision. A quantitative knowledge of the players' decisional power is useful for better understanding of the group decision process, and could even be used in weighted voting within the group structure. We adapt the REMBRANDT suite of decision models (multiplicative AHP and SMART) to measure decisional power in groups, and we generalise this to cater for the case where power itself is deemed to be multidimensional in nature, and the case of uncertain subjective judgements of power amongst group members.     

Reforming the Governance of the International Monetary Fund

Democratising the governance of the IMF will significantly improve the institution's capacity to manage crises. The implementation of a democratic framework requires a reform of the Fund's ‘quota regime,’ which mediates the distribution of voting power. An optimal reform of the quota regime that reflects the increased weight of emerging economies requires matching the number of policy objectives with the number of policy instruments. Presently, there is a classic ‘assignment problem’ whereby one policy instrument (i.e., the quota regime) is aimed at achieving three objectives (i.e., member contribution obligations, access rights, and voting rights). Three different instruments need to be adopted. Member contributions should be based on member's capacity to pay; access to resources should be based on need; and voting rights should balance the rights of creditors with the principle of sovereign equality. These reforms will enhance the Fund's legitimacy and accountability as a forum for global economic policy‐making.     

The Theory of Raising Rivals’ Costs and Evidence from the International Labour Organisation

The strategy of raising rivals’ costs may be adopted by firms in a market, a cartel or interest group or by political majorities in a federal state or international organisation. We provide a first survey and formal exposition of the theory and present examples for each of these applications. In an international cross‐section analysis using unpublished data for the period 1980–98, we explain roll‐call voting of government representatives in ILO committees drafting international labour standards. Using four different indices of regulation and country samples, we find that governments vote for tighter standards if labour regulation is high in their own country. Our evidence rejects the hypothesis of Brown, Deardorff and Stern that countries exporting low‐skill labour‐intensive products vote for ILO standards in order to restrict their own supply and increase their terms of trade. As expected, left‐party governments vote more in line with labour unions than other governments do. Domestic regulation has a considerably larger effect on voting if the convention in question would raise labour costs in ILO member states. This indicates that highly regulated countries try to raise others’ costs.     

An Election Method to Improve Policy Representation of a Parliament

Since voters are often swayed more by the charisma, personal image and communication skills of the individual candidates standing for election than by the parties’ political manifestos, they may cast votes that are actually in opposition to their policy preferences. Such a type of behavior, known as ‘irrational voting’, results in the election of representatives who do not correspond exactly to the voters’ own views. The example of the 2013 German Bundestag shows that the method used to elect it results in inadequate policy representation. The analysis of these elections (see, Tangian, 2016) led to an alternative method which is discussed in this paper. In the alternative method the voters’ policy preferences are taken into account explicitly by means of embedded referenda, testing the matching of the candidates’ policy profiles with that of the electorate. Then the parties are indexed, not with respect to the percentage of votes received but with respect to their representativeness indices of popularity (the average percentage of the population represented) and universality (frequency in representing a majority), as introduced in the previous paper mentioned. The method is then hypothetically applied to redistribute the Bundestag seats among the party factions, producing a considerable gain in the representativeness of the Bundestag. Finally, we discuss mixed election procedures combining the elements of traditional voting schemes with the proposed method.     

Computer-assisted constrained approval voting

Approval voting, proposed independently by several analysts in the 1970s, is a voting system in which voters can vote for as many candidates as they like in multicandidate elections. Recently, S.J. Brams modified this system, introducing so-called constrained approval voting. It is designed for a professional association to ensure equitable representation of different interests. In his new system approval voting is combined with the constraints on the number of persons that can be elected from different categories of members. In the present paper the problem of constrained approval voting is formulated (following the work of R.F. Potthoff) as an integer programming problem. Some computational aspects of this problem are discussed. The paper presents a numerical example illustrating a possibility to apply the discussed voting procedure in the election of members of the Committee for Organization and Management Sciences of the Polish Academy of Sciences.     

CSR and stakeholder salience in MNE subsidiaries in emerging markets

The purpose of this study is to identify the key stakeholder groups pressuring multinational enterprises (MNEs) in emerging markets (EMs), also if the pressure is global or local, to develop corporate social responsibility (CSR) strategies. Drawing on stakeholder salience and institutional theories, all the stakeholder groups acknowledged and analysed in the literature were identified and examined to understand if they were perceived by MNEs in China as effective in pressuring them to engage in CSR strategies and activities. Results demonstrate that only stakeholder groups with power – government power or voting power – are perceived as having enough pressure to make MNEs’ Chinese subsidiaries engage in CSR, which is contrary to current theories. Our results allow us to theorise on an extension of the concept of utilitarian power and political power when analysing stakeholder salience in EMs. This research has important implications for managers as balancing and working with limited resources and correctly identifying and prioritising key stakeholders are vital to successfully improving performance.     

Power Indices and Minimal Winning Coalitions for Simple Games in Partition Function Form

We propose a generalization of simple games to partition function form games based on a monotonicity property that we define in this context. This property allows us to properly speak about minimal winning embedded coalitions. We propose and characterize two power indices based on such coalitions. Finally, the new indices are used to study the distribution of power in the Parliament of Andalusia that emerged after the elections of March 22, 2015.     

电子选举中安全技术的应用

在选举过程中保护投票者的匿名性、选票内容的保密性和计票的公正性是设计安全电子选举系统的核心技术。本文综述了电子选举系统的基本实现,指出了电子选举的基本和更高安全需求,介绍并分析了几种安全技术及其在电子选举系统中的应用。     

Fundamental dimensions of U.S. trade policy

How many dimensions adequately characterize voting on U.S. trade policy? How are these dimensions to be interpreted? This paper seeks those answers in the context of voting on the landmark 1988 Omnibus Trade and Competitiveness Act. The paper takes steps beyond the existing literature. First, using a factor analytic approach, the dimension issue is examined to determine whether subsets of roll call votes on trade policy are correlated. A factor-analytic result allows the use of a limited number of votes for this purpose. Second, a structural model with latent variables is used to find what economic and political factors comprise these dimensions. The study yields two main findings. More than one dimension determines voting in the Senate, with the main dimension driven by economic interest, not ideology. Although two dimensions are required to fully account for House voting, one dimension dominates. That dimension is driven primarily by party. Based on reported evidence, and a growing consensus in the congressional studies literature, this finding is attributed to interest-based leadership that evolves in order to solve collective action problems faced by individual legislators.     

Siding with the underdog: is your customer voting effort a sweet deal for your competitors?

In this research, we explore the negative consequences of engaging customer participation through voting mechanisms. Specifically, we draw attention to the double risk of customer voting, first by identifying the adverse effects of losing, and then by revealing the potential of turning an already engaged set of customers over to underdog competitors. We first establish that the losing effect is distinct from that of a voting (empowerment) effect (Pilot Study). We then replicate the losing effect and show that losing (as opposed to winning) voters tend to experience stronger levels of disempowerment and identify more with the underdog (Study 1). Finally, we demonstrate that losing voters are more likely to choose a competitor brand over the incumbent brand, particularly when the competitor is perceived to be an underdog (Study 2). Our findings caution brand managers to reconsider their customer engagement strategy when it involves customer voting.     

The Third Vote Experiment: Enhancing Policy Representation of a Student Parliament

Since voters are often swayed more by the personal image of politicians than by party manifestos, they may cast votes that are in opposition to their policy preferences. This results in the election of representatives who do not correspond exactly to the voters’ own views. An alternative voting procedure to avoid this type of election failure is prompted by the approach implemented in internet voting advice applications, like the German Wahl-O-Mat, which asks the user a number of questions on topical policy issues; the computer program, drawing on all the parties’ answers, finds for the user the best-matching party, the second-best-matching party, etc. Under the proposed alternative election method, the voters cast no direct votes. Rather, they are asked about their preferences on the policy issues as declared in the party manifestos (Introduce nationwide minimum wage? Yes/No; Introduce a speed limit on the motorways? Yes/No, etc.), which reveals the balance of public opinion on each issue. These embedded referenda measure the degree to which the parties’ policies match the preferences of the electorate. The parliament seats are then distributed among the parties in proportion to their indices of popularity (the average percentage of the population represented on all the issues) and universality (frequency in representing a majority). This paper reports on an experimental application of this method during the election of the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology Student Parliament on July 4–8, 2016. The experiment shows that the alternative election method can increase the representativeness of the Student Parliament. We also discuss some traits and bottlenecks of the method that should be taken into account when preparing elections.     

累积投票制的博弈性及其解决方法

累积投票制度因具备一个完整的博弈构成要件 (即 ,博弈方、策略空间和支付结构 ) ,具有博弈性。累积投票博弈性的特点有 :累积投票主要是非合作博弈、也可能是合作博弈 ,累积投票是静态博弈、有限策略博弈和非零和博弈。为了减少累积投票的博弈效果 ,鼓励合作博弈 ,可以采取立法手段、分类董事会、缩小董事会规模和购买表决权无效原则等方法。     

Measuring Representativeness in Different Electoral Systems,Using Italian and Dutch Data

I use power indices to assess the level of representative efficiency of different electoral systems. A representative democracy should “give voice” to as many people’s preferences as possible. This paper evaluates how close a given electoral system is to mirroring the distribution of votes cast in an election. To this goal, both power indices and differences between shares of votes received and seats gained are used. The distribution of power is also compared with both the share of seats of parties in the assembly and the share of votes obtained in the election. The results show that proportional systems and run-off majority are more efficient in terms of representativeness than first-past-the-post methods. Moreover, as the total number of seats in a parliament decreases, representative efficiency tends to increase. The analysis is conducted through simulations using conditional and real (Dutch and Italian) data.