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- Jun 21, 2003
Which discipline played the largest role in the results of your favorite team at Sochi?
It might seem obvious that whoever scored the most points (woman, man, dance team or pairs team) was the most instrumental in the team victory. However, techniques developed in the 1950s in economics and political science offer a different perspective. For example, in the U.S. Congress the conservative wing of the Republican Party is small in number but wields great power because without them the Party does not have a majority.
http://www.gtcenter.org/Downloads/Conf/Coughlin2541.pdf Thanks to GS poster Ice Coverage for finding this paper and sending it to me.
If you don’t want to wade through 30 pages of methodology and explanation of the Shapley-Shubik and Banzhaf Power Indices, you can skip to the tables at the very end to see the results. For instance, the “power indices” for Russia to win the event in the LP, given the SP results, turned out to be
Men: 1/3; Ladies 1/3; Pairs 1/3; Dance 0
This means that each of men, women and pairs were crucial to win, but these three were enough to win all by themselves and they didn’t need dance in the LP at all.
On the other hand, for Japan in the short program, if the goal was simply to advance to the final round, the power indices were 1/4, 1/4, 1/4 and 1/4. The pairs and dance teams, though each finished near the bottom with only 3 placement points, still these 3 points were just as critical to the team success as were Hanyu’s 10.
It might seem obvious that whoever scored the most points (woman, man, dance team or pairs team) was the most instrumental in the team victory. However, techniques developed in the 1950s in economics and political science offer a different perspective. For example, in the U.S. Congress the conservative wing of the Republican Party is small in number but wields great power because without them the Party does not have a majority.
http://www.gtcenter.org/Downloads/Conf/Coughlin2541.pdf Thanks to GS poster Ice Coverage for finding this paper and sending it to me.
If you don’t want to wade through 30 pages of methodology and explanation of the Shapley-Shubik and Banzhaf Power Indices, you can skip to the tables at the very end to see the results. For instance, the “power indices” for Russia to win the event in the LP, given the SP results, turned out to be
Men: 1/3; Ladies 1/3; Pairs 1/3; Dance 0
This means that each of men, women and pairs were crucial to win, but these three were enough to win all by themselves and they didn’t need dance in the LP at all.
On the other hand, for Japan in the short program, if the goal was simply to advance to the final round, the power indices were 1/4, 1/4, 1/4 and 1/4. The pairs and dance teams, though each finished near the bottom with only 3 placement points, still these 3 points were just as critical to the team success as were Hanyu’s 10.
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