Measuring influence in command games

In the paper, we study a relation between command games proposed by Hu and Shapley and an influence model. We show that our framework of influence is more general than the framework of the command games. We define several influence functions which capture the command structure. These functions are compatible with the command games, in the sense that each commandable player for a coalition in the command game is a follower of the coalition under the command influence function. Some of the presented influence functions are equivalent to the command games, that is, they are compatible with the command games, and additionally each follower of a coalition under the command influence function is also a commandable player for that coalition in the command games. For some influence functions we define the equivalent command games. We show that not for all influence functions the compatible command games exist. Moreover, we propose a more general definition of the influence index and show that under some assumptions, some power indices, which can be used in the command games, coincide with some expressions of the weighted influence indices. Both the Shapley-Shubik index and the Banzhaf index are equal to a difference between the weighted influence indices under some influence functions, and the only difference between these two power indices lies in the weights for the influence indices. An example of the Confucian model of society is broadly examined. JEL Classification: C7, D7