Socially optimal districting
By: Stephen Coate, Brian Knight.
Contributors: Knight, Brian.; National Bureau of Economic Research.
Series: NBER working paper series ;; working paper 11462; Working paper series (National Bureau of Economic Research : Online) ;; working paper no. 11462.
Publisher: National Bureau of Economic Research
Published: 2005
Place of publication: Cambridge, MA
Language: eng
Format: Electronic resource
Subjects: Apportionment (Election law) -- United States; United States -- Social policy
Description: "This paper provides a welfare economic analysis of the problem of districting.  In the context of a simple micro-founded model intended to capture the salient features of U.S.  politics, it studies how a social planner should allocate citizens of different ideologies across districts to maximize aggregate utility.  In the model, districting determines the equilibrium seat-vote curve which is the relationship between the aggregate vote share of the political parties and their share of seats in the legislature.  To understand optimal districting, the paper first characterizes the optimal seat-vote curve which describes the ideal relationship between votes and seats.  It then shows that under rather weak conditions the optimal seat-vote curve is implementable in the sense that there exist districtings which make the equilibrium seat-vote curve equal to the optimal seat-vote curve.  The nature of these optimal districtings is described.  Finally, the paper provides a full characterization of the constrained optimal seat-vote curve and the districtings that underlie it when the optimal seat-vote curve is not achievable"--National Bureau of Economic Research web site.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references.
Title from PDF file as viewed on 7/6/2005.
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