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Banzhaf index for multiple voting systems. An application to the European Union

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Abstract

Multi-criteria simple games constitute an extension of the basic framework of voting systems and collective decision-making. The study of power index plays an important role in the theory of multi-criteria simple games. Thus, in this paper, we propose the extended Banzhaf index for these games, as the natural generalization of this index in conventional simple games. This approach allows us to compare various criteria simultaneously. An axiomatic characterization of this power index is established. The Banzhaf index is computed by taking into account the minimal winning coalitions of each class. Since this index depends on the number of ways in which each player can effect a swing, one of the main difficulties for finding this index is that it involves a large number of computations. We propose a combinatorial procedure, based on generating functions, to obtain the Banzhaf index more efficiently for weighted multi-criteria simple games. As an application, the distribution of voting power in the European Union is calculated.

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Notes

  1. For x,yR k we denote xyx i y i , xy.

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Correspondence to Luisa Monroy.

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The research of the authors is partially supported by the Andalusian Ministry of Economics, Innovation and Science project P09-SEJ-4903, the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation projects ECO2011-29801-C02-01, and the Spanish Ministry of Science and Technology project MTM2010-19576-C02-01.

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Monroy, L., Fernández, F.R. Banzhaf index for multiple voting systems. An application to the European Union. Ann Oper Res 215, 215–230 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10479-013-1374-8

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10479-013-1374-8

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