IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/spr/joecth/v69y2020i3d10.1007_s00199-019-01180-0.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

An axiomatic analysis of the papal conclave

Author

Listed:
  • Andrew Mackenzie

    (Maastricht University)

Abstract

In the Roman Catholic Church, the pope is elected by the (cardinal) electors through “scrutiny,” where each elector casts an anonymous nomination. Using historical documents, we argue that a guiding principle for the church has been the protection of electors from the temptation to defy God through dishonest nomination. Based on axiomatic analysis involving this principle, we recommend that the church overturn the changes of Pope Pius XII to reinstate the scrutiny of Pope Gregory XV, and argue that randomization in the case of deadlock merits consideration.

Suggested Citation

  • Andrew Mackenzie, 2020. "An axiomatic analysis of the papal conclave," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 69(3), pages 713-743, April.
    • Handle: RePEc:spr:joecth:v:69:y:2020:i:3:d:10.1007_s00199-019-01180-0
    DOI: 10.1007/s00199-019-01180-0
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s00199-019-01180-0
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1007/s00199-019-01180-0?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. H. Reiju Mihara, 1997. "Anonymity and neutrality in Arrow's Theorem with restricted coalition algebras," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 14(4), pages 503-512.
    2. Tamura, Shohei, 2016. "Characterizing minimal impartial rules for awarding prizes," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 95(C), pages 41-46.
    3. Caplin, Andrew & Nalebuff, Barry, 1991. "Aggregation and Social Choice: A Mean Voter Theorem," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 59(1), pages 1-23, January.
    4. Sprumont, Yves, 2013. "Constrained-optimal strategy-proof assignment: Beyond the Groves mechanisms," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 148(3), pages 1102-1121.
    5. Thomson, William, 2015. "Axiomatic and game-theoretic analysis of bankruptcy and taxation problems: An update," Mathematical Social Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 74(C), pages 41-59.
    6. de Clippel, Geoffroy & Moulin, Herve & Tideman, Nicolaus, 2008. "Impartial division of a dollar," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 139(1), pages 176-191, March.
    7. Alvin E. Roth, 2007. "Repugnance as a Constraint on Markets," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 21(3), pages 37-58, Summer.
    8. Abdulkadiroglu, Atila & Sonmez, Tayfun, 1999. "House Allocation with Existing Tenants," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 88(2), pages 233-260, October.
    9. Jin Li & Jingyi Xue, 2013. "Egalitarian division under Leontief Preferences," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 54(3), pages 597-622, November.
    10. Yew-Kwang Ng & Guang-Zhen Sun & Guang-Zhen Sun, 2003. "Exclusion of self evaluations in peer ratings: An impossibility and some proposals," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 20(3), pages 443-456, June.
    11. Edward Clarke, 1971. "Multipart pricing of public goods," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 11(1), pages 17-33, September.
    12. László Á. Kóczy & Balázs Sziklai, 2013. "Electing the Pope," Working Paper Series 1301, Óbuda University, Keleti Faculty of Business and Management.
    13. Shohei Tamura & Shinji Ohseto, 2014. "Impartial nomination correspondences," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 43(1), pages 47-54, June.
    14. Caplin, Andrew S & Nalebuff, Barry J, 1988. "On 64%-Majority Rule," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 56(4), pages 787-814, July.
    15. Tayfun Sönmez & Tobias B. Switzer, 2013. "Matching With (Branch‐of‐Choice) Contracts at the United States Military Academy," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 81(2), pages 451-488, March.
    16. Mackenzie, Andrew, 2015. "Symmetry and impartial lotteries," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 94(C), pages 15-28.
    17. William Vickrey, 1961. "Counterspeculation, Auctions, And Competitive Sealed Tenders," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 16(1), pages 8-37, March.
    18. Aumann, Robert J. & Maschler, Michael, 1985. "Game theoretic analysis of a bankruptcy problem from the Talmud," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 36(2), pages 195-213, August.
    19. Balinski, Michel & Sonmez, Tayfun, 1999. "A Tale of Two Mechanisms: Student Placement," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 84(1), pages 73-94, January.
    20. Roger B. Myerson, 1981. "Optimal Auction Design," Mathematics of Operations Research, INFORMS, vol. 6(1), pages 58-73, February.
    21. Ron Holzman & Hervé Moulin, 2013. "Impartial Nominations for a Prize," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 81(1), pages 173-196, January.
    22. Gibbard, Allan, 1973. "Manipulation of Voting Schemes: A General Result," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 41(4), pages 587-601, July.
    23. Groves, Theodore, 1973. "Incentives in Teams," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 41(4), pages 617-631, July.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Javier Cembrano & Felix Fischer & Max Klimm, 2023. "Optimal Impartial Correspondences," Papers 2301.04544, arXiv.org.
    2. In'acio B'o & Li Chen, 2021. "Designing Heaven's Will: The job assignment in the Chinese imperial civil service," Papers 2105.02457, arXiv.org, revised Sep 2021.
    3. Burak Can & Péter Csóka & Emre Ergin, 2021. "How to choose a fair delegation?," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 72(4), pages 1339-1373, November.
    4. Amorós, Pablo, 2022. "Implementation in dominant strategies of quota rules to choose one candidate," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 216(C).
    5. Cho, Wonki Jo & Moreno-Ternero, Juan D., 2024. "On reaching social consent," Journal of Mathematical Economics, Elsevier, vol. 110(C).
    6. Amorós, Pablo, 2021. "Using supermajority rules to aggregate judgments of possibly biased experts," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 207(C).
    7. Javier Cembrano & Svenja M. Griesbach & Maximilian J. Stahlberg, 2023. "Deterministic Impartial Selection with Weights," Papers 2310.14991, arXiv.org, revised Aug 2024.
    8. Mathieu Martin & Zéphirin Nganmeni & Ashley Piggins & Élise F. Tchouante, 2022. "Pure-strategy Nash equilibrium in the spatial model with valence: existence and characterization," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 190(3), pages 301-316, March.
    9. Cembrano, Javier & Fischer, Felix & Hannon, David & Klimm, Max, 2024. "Impartial selection with additive guarantees via iterated deletion," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 144(C), pages 203-224.
    10. Matthew Olckers & Toby Walsh, 2022. "Manipulation and Peer Mechanisms: A Survey," Papers 2210.01984, arXiv.org, revised May 2024.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Mackenzie, Andrew, 2018. "A Game of the Throne of Saint Peter," Research Memorandum 015, Maastricht University, Graduate School of Business and Economics (GSBE).
    2. Tomoya Kazumura & Shigehiro Serizawa, 2016. "Efficiency and strategy-proofness in object assignment problems with multi-demand preferences," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 47(3), pages 633-663, October.
    3. Atila Abdulkadiroglu & Parag A. Pathak & Alvin E. Roth & Tayfun Sönmez, 2006. "Changing the Boston School Choice Mechanism," Levine's Bibliography 122247000000001022, UCLA Department of Economics.
    4. Mackenzie, Andrew, 2015. "Symmetry and impartial lotteries," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 94(C), pages 15-28.
    5. Alva, Samson & Manjunath, Vikram, 2019. "Strategy-proof Pareto-improvement," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 181(C), pages 121-142.
    6. Marek Pycia & Peter Troyan, 2023. "A Theory of Simplicity in Games and Mechanism Design," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 91(4), pages 1495-1526, July.
    7. Philippe Jehiel & Laurent Lamy, 2018. "A Mechanism Design Approach to the Tiebout Hypothesis," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 126(2), pages 735-760.
    8. repec:cte:werepe:we081207 is not listed on IDEAS
    9. Debasis Mishra & Abdul Quadir, 2012. "Deterministic single object auctions with private values," Discussion Papers 12-06, Indian Statistical Institute, Delhi.
    10. Committee, Nobel Prize, 2020. "Improvements to auction theory and inventions of new auction formats," Nobel Prize in Economics documents 2020-2, Nobel Prize Committee.
    11. Ning Chen & Nick Gravin & Pinyan Lu, 2014. "Truthful Generalized Assignments via Stable Matching," Mathematics of Operations Research, INFORMS, vol. 39(3), pages 722-736, August.
    12. Ronald M. Harstad & Aleksandar Saša Pekeč, 2008. "Relevance to Practice and Auction Theory: A Memorial Essay for Michael Rothkopf," Interfaces, INFORMS, vol. 38(5), pages 367-380, October.
    13. Javier Cembrano & Felix Fischer & Max Klimm, 2023. "Improved Bounds for Single-Nomination Impartial Selection," Papers 2305.09998, arXiv.org.
    14. , & , & ,, 2007. "Secure implementation," Theoretical Economics, Econometric Society, vol. 2(3), September.
    15. Matthew Olckers & Toby Walsh, 2022. "Manipulation and Peer Mechanisms: A Survey," Papers 2210.01984, arXiv.org, revised May 2024.
    16. Thierry Marchant & Debasis Mishra, 2015. "Mechanism design with two alternatives in quasi-linear environments," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 44(2), pages 433-455, February.
    17. Ruben Juarez & Kohei Nitta & Miguel Vargas, 2020. "Profit-sharing and efficient time allocation," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 70(3), pages 817-846, October.
    18. Dilip Mookherjee, 2008. "The 2007 Nobel Memorial Prize in Mechanism Design Theory," Scandinavian Journal of Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 110(2), pages 237-260, June.
    19. Miralles, Antonio, 2012. "Cardinal Bayesian allocation mechanisms without transfers," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 147(1), pages 179-206.
    20. Athanasiou, Efthymios, 2013. "A Solomonic solution to the problem of assigning a private indivisible good," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 82(C), pages 369-387.
    21. Weber, Thomas A. & Bapna, Abhishek, 2008. "Bayesian incentive compatible parametrization of mechanisms," Journal of Mathematical Economics, Elsevier, vol. 44(3-4), pages 394-403, February.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Pope; Conclave; Mechanism design; Impartiality;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • Z12 - Other Special Topics - - Cultural Economics - - - Religion
    • K16 - Law and Economics - - Basic Areas of Law - - - Election Law
    • D82 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Asymmetric and Private Information; Mechanism Design
    • D71 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - Social Choice; Clubs; Committees; Associations

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:spr:joecth:v:69:y:2020:i:3:d:10.1007_s00199-019-01180-0. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.springer.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.