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A geometric examination of Kemeny's rule

Author

Listed:
  • Donald G. Saari

    (Department of Mathematics, Northwestern University, Evanston, IL 60208-2730 USA)

  • Vincent R. Merlin

    (GEMMA-CREME, MRSH, Université de Caen, F-14032 Caen cedex, France)

Abstract

By using geometry, a fairly complete analysis of Kemeny's rule (KR) is obtained. It is shown that the Borda Count (BC) always ranks the KR winner above the KR loser, and, conversely, KR always ranks the BC winner above the BC loser. Such KR relationships fail to hold for other positional methods. The geometric reasons why KR enjoys remarkably consistent election rankings as candidates are added or dropped are explained. The power of this KR consistency is demonstrated by comparing KR and BC outcomes. But KR's consistency carries a heavy cost; it requires KR to partially dismiss the crucial "individual rationality of voters" assumption.

Suggested Citation

  • Donald G. Saari & Vincent R. Merlin, 2000. "A geometric examination of Kemeny's rule," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 17(3), pages 403-438.
    • Handle: RePEc:spr:sochwe:v:17:y:2000:i:3:p:403-438
    Note: Received: 5 February 1998/Accepted: 26 May 1999
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    Citations

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    Cited by:

    1. Donald Saari, 2006. "Which is better: the Condorcet or Borda winner?," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 26(1), pages 107-129, January.
    2. Burak Can & Mohsen Pourpouneh & Ton Storcken, 2022. "An axiomatic re-characterization of the Kemeny rule," Review of Economic Design, Springer;Society for Economic Design, vol. 26(3), pages 447-467, September.
    3. Mahajne, Muhammad & Volij, Oscar, 2022. "Pairwise consensus and the Borda rule," Mathematical Social Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 116(C), pages 17-21.
    4. Lederer, Patrick, 2024. "Bivariate scoring rules: Unifying the characterizations of positional scoring rules and Kemeny's rule," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 218(C).
    5. Martin, Mathieu & Merlin, Vincent, 2002. "The stability set as a social choice correspondence," Mathematical Social Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 44(1), pages 91-113, September.
    6. Stergios Athanassoglou, 2015. "Multidimensional welfare rankings under weight imprecision: a social choice perspective," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 44(4), pages 719-744, April.
    7. Cascón, J.M. & González-Arteaga, T. & de Andrés Calle, R., 2019. "Reaching social consensus family budgets: The Spanish case," Omega, Elsevier, vol. 86(C), pages 28-41.
    8. Mathias Risse, 2005. "Why the count de Borda cannot beat the Marquis de Condorcet," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 25(1), pages 95-113, October.
    9. Ignacio Contreras, 2010. "A Distance-Based Consensus Model with Flexible Choice of Rank-Position Weights," Group Decision and Negotiation, Springer, vol. 19(5), pages 441-456, September.
    10. Yoko Kawada, 2018. "Cosine similarity and the Borda rule," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 51(1), pages 1-11, June.
    11. Giuseppe Munda, 2012. "Choosing Aggregation Rules for Composite Indicators," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 109(3), pages 337-354, December.
    12. Mohamed Drissi-Bakhkhat & Michel Truchon, 2004. "Maximum likelihood approach to vote aggregation with variable probabilities," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 23(2), pages 161-185, October.
    13. Christian Klamler, 2003. "Kemeny's rule and Slater''s rule: A binary comparison," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 4(35), pages 1-7.
    14. Lamboray, Claude, 2007. "A comparison between the prudent order and the ranking obtained with Borda's, Copeland's, Slater's and Kemeny's rules," Mathematical Social Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 54(1), pages 1-16, July.
    15. Eric Kamwa, 2022. "The Condorcet Loser Criterion in Committee Selection," Working Papers hal-03880064, HAL.
    16. Salvatore Greco & Alessio Ishizaka & Menelaos Tasiou & Gianpiero Torrisi, 2019. "On the Methodological Framework of Composite Indices: A Review of the Issues of Weighting, Aggregation, and Robustness," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 141(1), pages 61-94, January.
    17. repec:ebl:ecbull:v:4:y:2003:i:35:p:1-7 is not listed on IDEAS
    18. Cervone, Davide P. & Dai, Ronghua & Gnoutcheff, Daniel & Lanterman, Grant & Mackenzie, Andrew & Morse, Ari & Srivastava, Nikhil & Zwicker, William S., 2012. "Voting with rubber bands, weights, and strings," Mathematical Social Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 64(1), pages 11-27.

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