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Financial Equilibrium, Voting Procedures, and Coalition Structures in Allocational Mechanisms

Citation

Williamson, Jack Marshall (1987) Financial Equilibrium, Voting Procedures, and Coalition Structures in Allocational Mechanisms. Dissertation (Ph.D.), California Institute of Technology. doi:10.7907/3dsd-4003. https://resolver.caltech.edu/CaltechTHESIS:07092013-083047130

Abstract

This thesis is comprised of three chapters, each of which is concerned with properties of allocational mechanisms which include voting procedures as part of their operation. The theme of interaction between economic and political forces recurs in the three chapters, as described below.

Chapter One demonstrates existence of a non-controlling interest shareholders' equilibrium for a stylized one-period stock market economy with fewer securities than states of the world. The economy has two decision mechanisms: Owners vote to change firms' production plans across states, fixing shareholdings; and individuals trade shares and the current production / consumption good, fixing production plans. A shareholders' equilibrium is a production plan profile, and a shares / current good allocation stable for both mechanisms. In equilibrium, no (Kramer direction-restricted) plan revision is supported by a share-weighted majority, and there exists no Pareto superior reallocation.

Chapter Two addresses efficient management of stationary-site, fixed-budget, partisan voter registration drives. Sufficient conditions obtain for unique optimal registrar deployment within contested districts. Each census tract is assigned an expected net plurality return to registration investment index, computed from estimates of registration, partisanship, and turnout. Optimum registration intensity is a logarithmic transformation of a tract's index. These conditions are tested using a merged data set including both census variables and Los Angeles County Registrar data from several 1984 Assembly registration drives. Marginal registration spending benefits, registrar compensation, and the general campaign problem are also discussed.

The last chapter considers social decision procedures at a higher level of abstraction. Chapter Three analyzes the structure of decisive coalition families, given a quasitransitive-valued social decision procedure satisfying the universal domain and IIA axioms. By identifying those alternatives X* ⊆ X on which the Pareto principle fails, imposition in the social ranking is characterized. Every coaliton is weakly decisive for X* over X~X*, and weakly antidecisive for X~X* over X*; therefore, alternatives in X~X* are never socially ranked above X*. Repeated filtering of alternatives causing Pareto failure shows states in Xn*~X(n+1)* are never socially ranked above X(n+1)*. Limiting results of iterated application of the *-operator are also discussed.

Item Type:Thesis (Dissertation (Ph.D.))
Subject Keywords:Social Science
Degree Grantor:California Institute of Technology
Division:Humanities and Social Sciences
Major Option:Social Science
Thesis Availability:Public (worldwide access)
Research Advisor(s):
  • McKelvey, Richard D.
Thesis Committee:
  • McKelvey, Richard D.
  • Border, Kim C.
  • Cain, Bruce E.
  • Strnad, James
Defense Date:5 December 1986
Record Number:CaltechTHESIS:07092013-083047130
Persistent URL:https://resolver.caltech.edu/CaltechTHESIS:07092013-083047130
DOI:10.7907/3dsd-4003
Default Usage Policy:No commercial reproduction, distribution, display or performance rights in this work are provided.
ID Code:7911
Collection:CaltechTHESIS
Deposited By: Benjamin Perez
Deposited On:10 Jul 2013 14:23
Last Modified:16 Apr 2021 22:10

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