Coalition formation and the city of Los Angeles

Come together: The Beatles and coalition formation . This chapter focuses on the process by which coalitions are formed. The Beatles are used to illustrate the importance of examining the formation process. An agent based model of coalition formation is proposed, that allows agents to choose any feasible coalition around a public good. The model consists of agents, a tree structure that represents the agents paths to each potential coalition and an auctioneer that represents the negotiation process. The model is simulated to determine the affects that spatial restrictions have on coalition formation. The results strongly show that changing the process by which coalitions are formed does affect what coalitions form and the stability of those coalitions.;Estimating public goods utility functions. The econometric model that is developed in this chapter determines the attitudes of different regions towards government goods and services in general. A multi-issue model is used in conjunction with voting and census data to estimate the Utility functions of different regions of the City of Los Angeles towards government. These Utility functions can then be used as payoff functions in the simulation model of the first chapter.;Is Los Angeles stable? The citizens of the San Fernando Valley have proposed that they secede from the City of Los Angeles in order to establish their own city. One of the core reasons for the secession is the desire for a smaller more efficient government. The model of coalition formation developed in the first chapter, is applied to the City of Los Angeles with the Utility functions estimated in the second chapter to determine whether Los Angeles is stable or whether a secession movement will eventually succeed.