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A Computer Simulation of the Paradox of Voting*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 August 2014

David Klahr
David Klahr*
Affiliation:
Carnegie Institute of Technology
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Extract

This paper presents estimates of the probability that the occurrence of the Paradox of Voting, commonly known as Arrow's Paradox, will prevent the selection of a majority issue when odd-sized committees of m judges vote upon n issues. The estimates, obtained through computer simulation of the voting process, indicate that the probability of such an intransitive social ordering is lower than the ratio of intransitive outcomes to all outcomes.

Many of the arguments in political theory and welfare economics dealing with the paradox (e.g., Downs, 1957; Black, 1958; Schubert, 1960) seem to have implicitly assumed that since the paradox exists, its likelihood of occurrence is very close to 1. The results in this paper may call for a re-examination of these positions.

Type
Research Notes
Information
American Political Science Review , Volume 60 , Issue 2 , June 1966 , pp. 384 - 390
Copyright
Copyright © American Political Science Association 1966

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