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Asymptotic utilitarianism in scoring rules

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  • Marcus Pivato

    (Université de Cergy-Pontoise)

Abstract

Given a large enough population of voters whose utility functions satisfy certain statistical regularities, we show that voting rules such as the Borda rule, approval voting, and evaluative voting have a very high probability of selecting the social alternative which maximizes the utilitarian social welfare function. We also characterize the speed with which this probability approaches one as the population grows.

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  • Marcus Pivato, 2016. "Asymptotic utilitarianism in scoring rules," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 47(2), pages 431-458, August.
    • Handle: RePEc:spr:sochwe:v:47:y:2016:i:2:d:10.1007_s00355-016-0971-2
    DOI: 10.1007/s00355-016-0971-2
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    2. Sandro Ambuehl & B. Douglas Bernheim, 2021. "Interpreting the will of the people: social preferences over ordinal outcomes," ECON - Working Papers 395, Department of Economics - University of Zurich, revised Jan 2024.
    3. Marcus Pivato, 2016. "Statistical Utilitarianism," Studies in Political Economy, in: Maria Gallego & Norman Schofield (ed.), The Political Economy of Social Choices, pages 187-204, Springer.
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    5. Pivato, Marcus, 2015. "Condorcet meets Bentham," Journal of Mathematical Economics, Elsevier, vol. 59(C), pages 58-65.
    6. Sandro Ambuehl & B. Douglas Bernheim, 2021. "Interpreting the Will of the People - A Positive Analysis of Ordinal Preference Aggregation," CESifo Working Paper Series 9317, CESifo.
    7. Postl, Peter, 2017. "Évaluation et comparaison des règles de vote derrière le voile de l’ignorance : Tour d'horizon sélectif et analyse des règles de scores à deux paramètres," L'Actualité Economique, Société Canadienne de Science Economique, vol. 93(1-2), pages 249-290, Mars-Juin.

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    JEL classification:

    • D63 - Microeconomics - - Welfare Economics - - - Equity, Justice, Inequality, and Other Normative Criteria and Measurement
    • D71 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - Social Choice; Clubs; Committees; Associations

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