The winner-take-all dilemma

Arbeitspapier

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.

Object Details

• Language: Englisch

References and Relationships

• Bibliographic citation: Series: ISER Discussion Paper ; No. 1059

Classification and Topics

• Classification: Wirtschaft ; Noncooperative Games ; Analysis of Collective Decision-Making: General ; Political Processes: Rent-seeking, Lobbying, Elections, Legislatures, and Voting Behavior
• Subject: Representative democracy ; winner-take-all rule ; proportional rule

Contributors, Places and Time

• Event: Geistige Schöpfung
• (who): Kikuchi, Kazuya ; Koriyama, Yukio
• Event: Veröffentlichung
• (who): Osaka University, Institute of Social and Economic Research (ISER)
• (where): Osaka
• (when): 2019

Further information

• Handle: http://hdl.handle.net/10419/230465
• Last update: 10.03.2025, 11:42 AM CET