Comparison of optimal and voting outcomes

Abstract

This paper is an attempt to characterize the gap between voting outcome and optimal one by use a simple line location model. First, we derive the necessary and sufficient conditions that the voting outcome coincides with efficient one. Then we give simple examples which reveal the inefficiency of the voting solutions. Third we theoretically demonstrate that the network model can reduce to the linear model, indicating that our findings are applicable to network location problems. Finally, we apply our model to an actual city hall location problem in Japan.