Approximating power by weights

Abstract

Determining the power distribution of the members of a shareholder meeting or a legislative committee is a well-known problem for many applications. In some cases it turns out that power is nearly proportional to relative voting weights, which is very beneficial for both theoretical considerations and practical computations with many members. We present quantitative approximation results with precise error bounds for several power indices as well as impossibility results for such approximations between power and weights.