Balancing the Power to Appoint Officers

Recognition Program

Authors: Salvador Barberà and Danilo Coelho

Games and Economic Behavior, Vol. 101, 189–203, January, 2017

Rules of k names are two-stage procedures where a first set of agents, the proposers, select k individuals from a set of candidates, and then another agent, the chooser, appoints one among those k in the list. The list of k names is often arrived at by letting each of the proposers vote for v candidates and then choosing those k with the highest support. We then speak of v-rules of k names. We study how different choices of the parameters v and k affect the balance of power between the proposers and the choosers. We analyze a strategic game where the proposers interact to determine what list of candidates to submit. We investigate the impact of the choice of parameters v and k upon the distribution of power among the proposers and the chooser, and we discuss how to eventually balance it.

This paper originally appeared as Barcelona School of Economics Working Paper 696
This paper is acknowledged by the Barcelona School of Economics Recognition Program