The single-crossing property on a tree

Abstract

We generalize the classical single-crossing property to single-crossing property on trees and obtain new ways to construct Condorcet domains which are sets of linear orders which possess the property that every profile composed from those orders have transitive majority relation. We prove that for any tree there exist profiles that are single-crossing on that tree; moreover, that tree is minimal in this respect for at least one such profile. Finally, we provide a polynomial-time algorithm to recognize whether or not a given profile is single-crossing with respect to some tree. We also show that finding winners for Chamberlin-Courant rule is polynomial for profiles that are single-crossing on trees.