Abstract
This paper is concerned with voting rules in which one alternative defeats a second alternative if and only if it is preferred to the second alternative by a pre-specified proportion of the individuals who have strict preferences on the pair. In particular, the paper focuses on the potential of two alternative lower bounds (for the proportion used) as tools for studying the existence of voting equilibria (i.e., for studying the existence of alternatives which cannot be defeated). It establishes that there are certain important contexts where one of the two bounds does not directly reveal whether any voting equilibria exist, but the other one does.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Black D (1958) The theory of committees and elections. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge
Coughlin P (1981) Necessary and sufficient conditions for δ-relative majority voting equilibria. Econometrica 49:1223–1224
Fishburn P (1973) The theory of social choice. Princeton University Press, Princeton
Greenberg J (1979) Consistent majority rules over compact sets of alternatives. Econometrica 47:627–636
Greenberg J, Weber S (1985) Consistent δ-relative majority equilibria. Econometrica 53:463–464
Nitzan S, Paroush J (1984) Are qualified majority rules special? Public Choice 42:257–272
Schofield N (1984) Social equilibrium and cycles on compact sets. J Econ Theory 33:59–71
Slutsky S (1979) Equilibrium under α-majority voting. Econometrica 47:1113–1127
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Coughlin, P.J. Special majority rules and the existence of voting equilibria. Soc Choice Welfare 3, 31–35 (1986). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00433522
Received:
Accepted:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00433522