Article ID: | iaor2006315 |
Country: | Netherlands |
Volume: | 163 |
Issue: | 2 |
Start Page Number: | 370 |
End Page Number: | 387 |
Publication Date: | Jun 2005 |
Journal: | European Journal of Operational Research |
Authors: | Carreras Francesc |
Keywords: | voting |
The decisiveness index introduced in this paper is designed to provide a normalized measure of the agility of all simple games, primarily viewed as collective decision-making mechanisms. We study the mathematical properties of the index and derive different axiomatic characterizations for it. Moreover, a close relationship is shown to the Banzhaf index of power – for which twice the decisiveness index plays the role of potential function – that gives rise to an effective computational procedure. Some real-world examples illustrate the usefulness of the decisiveness index, together with the Banzhaf power index, in applications to political science.