[EM] a question about apportionment

[Bob Richard]

A standard source on the cube root rule for the (approximately) "best" 
size of a legislative body is Rein Taagepera and Matthew Shugart, "Seats 
& Votes" (Yale University Press, 1989),  pages 172-183. They provide 
both empirical evidence and a conceptual explanation. I'm not familiar 
with any basis for using the square root of anything.

--Bob Richard

On 4/16/2011 5:11 PM, Evan Dower wrote:
> What are the reasons behind the square roots and cube roots? Can you
> point me toward some research papers or something please?
>
> Also, in tiered representation, I would expect the representatives at
> one tier to elect the representatives at the next (from among
> themselves), but the United States elects people to most "tiers" based
> on popular votes for the region represented by that representative. To
> be more concrete, for tiered representation, I would expect (in your
> example) federal legislators to be elected by state legislators (not
> by the general public). Similarly, I would expect (again from your
> example) "Flat/Young-Earth Geocentric Creationists" to be the only
> ones allowed to vote on which of them should elected to the city
> council. This certainly doesn't match what you mean by tiered
> representation. Perhaps you could reference the definition you're
> using?