IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/bge/wpaper/1262.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Opinion Aggregation: Borda and Condorcet Revisited

Author

Listed:
  • Salvador Barberà
  • Walter Bossert

Abstract

In a world admitting a fixed finite set of alternatives, an opinion is an ordered pair of alternatives. Such a pair expresses the idea that one alternative is superior to another in some sense, and an opinion aggregator assigns an aggregate relation on the set of alternatives to every possible state of opinion. Our primary motivation is to extend the standard model of social choice theory to a more general one in which no specific reference to agents generating or holding opinions is needed. Although our analysis has some bearing on those cases where opinions reflect the goodness relations of agents in a society, it is not limited to them. In addition to that interpretation, opinions can also be used to represent other forms of comparative assessments emerging from different sources. The main results of the paper provide characterizations of suitably formulated versions of the Borda rule and Condorcet’s majority rule, essential aggregation methods that remain well-defined in our larger context.

Suggested Citation

  • Salvador Barberà & Walter Bossert, 2021. "Opinion Aggregation: Borda and Condorcet Revisited," Working Papers 1262, Barcelona School of Economics.
    • Handle: RePEc:bge:wpaper:1262
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://bse.eu/sites/default/files/working_paper_pdfs/1262.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Sekiguchi, Yohei, 2012. "A characterization of the plurality rule," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 116(3), pages 330-332.
    2. Shmuel Nitzan & Ariel Rubinstein, 1981. "A further characterization of Borda ranking method," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 36(1), pages 153-158, January.
    3. Martínez, Ricardo & Moreno, Bernardo, 2017. "Qualified voting systems," Mathematical Social Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 88(C), pages 49-54.
    4. José Alcantud & Annick Laruelle, 2014. "Dis&approval voting: a characterization," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 43(1), pages 1-10, June.
    5. Salvador Barberà & Walter Bossert & Kotaro Suzumura, 2021. "Daunou’s voting rule and the lexicographic assignment of priorities," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 56(2), pages 259-289, February.
    6. Hansson, Bengt & Sahlquist, Henrik, 1976. "A proof technique for social choice with variable electorate," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 13(2), pages 193-200, October.
    7. Yohei Sekiguchi, 2012. "A Characterization of the Plurality Rule," CIRJE F-Series CIRJE-F-833, CIRJE, Faculty of Economics, University of Tokyo.
    8. Chebotarev, P. Yu., 1994. "Aggregation of preferences by the generalized row sum method," Mathematical Social Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 27(3), pages 293-320, June.
    9. Young, H. P., 1974. "An axiomatization of Borda's rule," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 9(1), pages 43-52, September.
    10. Kelly, Jerry S. & Qi, Shaofang, 2016. "Characterizing plurality rule on a fixed population," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 146(C), pages 39-41.
    11. Chun-Hsien Yeh, 2008. "An efficiency characterization of plurality rule in collective choice problems," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 34(3), pages 575-583, March.
    12. Robert E. Goodin & Christian List, 2006. "A Conditional Defense of Plurality Rule: Generalizing May's Theorem in a Restricted Informational Environment," American Journal of Political Science, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 50(4), pages 940-949, October.
    13. Ching, Stephen, 1996. "A Simple Characterization of Plurality Rule," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 71(1), pages 298-302, October.
    14. Stéphane Gonzalez & Annick Laruelle & Philippe Solal, 2019. "Dilemma with approval and disapproval votes," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 53(3), pages 497-517, October.
    15. Peter C. Fishburn, 1970. "Intransitive Indifference in Preference Theory: A Survey," Operations Research, INFORMS, vol. 18(2), pages 207-228, April.
    16. Walter Bossert & Kotaro Suzumura, 2020. "Positionalist voting rules: a general definition and axiomatic characterizations," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 55(1), pages 85-116, June.
    17. Matthew O. Jackson & Leeat Yariv, 2015. "Collective Dynamic Choice: The Necessity of Time Inconsistency," American Economic Journal: Microeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 7(4), pages 150-178, November.
    18. P. C. Fishburn, 1984. "Probabilistic Social Choice Based on Simple Voting Comparisons," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 51(4), pages 683-692.
    19. Herrero, Carmen & Villar, Antonio, 2021. "Group decisions from individual rankings: The Borda–Condorcet rule," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 291(2), pages 757-765.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Barberà, Salvador & Bossert, Walter & Moreno-Ternero, Juan D., 2023. "Wine rankings and the Borda method," Journal of Wine Economics, Cambridge University Press, vol. 18(2), pages 122-138, May.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Kurihara, Takashi, 2018. "Axiomatic characterisations of the basic best–worst rule," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 172(C), pages 19-22.
    2. Hiroki Saitoh, 2022. "Characterization of tie-breaking plurality rules," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 59(1), pages 139-173, July.
    3. Z. Emel Öztürk, 2020. "Consistency of scoring rules: a reinvestigation of composition-consistency," International Journal of Game Theory, Springer;Game Theory Society, vol. 49(3), pages 801-831, September.
    4. Z. Emel Ozturk, 2017. "A composition-consistency characterization of the plurality rule," Working Papers 2017_04, Business School - Economics, University of Glasgow.
    5. Salvador Barberà & Walter Bossert & Kotaro Suzumura, 2021. "Daunou’s voting rule and the lexicographic assignment of priorities," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 56(2), pages 259-289, February.
    6. Kurihara, Takashi, 2018. "A simple characterization of the anti-plurality rule," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 168(C), pages 110-111.
    7. Pivato, Marcus, 2013. "Variable-population voting rules," Journal of Mathematical Economics, Elsevier, vol. 49(3), pages 210-221.
    8. Walter Bossert & Kotaro Suzumura, 2017. "The greatest unhappiness of the least number," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 49(3), pages 637-655, December.
    9. László Csató, 2019. "An impossibility theorem for paired comparisons," Central European Journal of Operations Research, Springer;Slovak Society for Operations Research;Hungarian Operational Research Society;Czech Society for Operations Research;Österr. Gesellschaft für Operations Research (ÖGOR);Slovenian Society Informatika - Section for Operational Research;Croatian Operational Research Society, vol. 27(2), pages 497-514, June.
    10. Sekiguchi, Yohei, 2012. "A characterization of the plurality rule," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 116(3), pages 330-332.
    11. Jac C. Heckelman, 2021. "Characterizing plurality using the majoritarian condition: a new proof and implications for other scoring rules," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 189(3), pages 335-346, December.
    12. Wesley H. Holliday & Eric Pacuit, 2023. "An extension of May's Theorem to three alternatives: axiomatizing Minimax voting," Papers 2312.14256, arXiv.org.
    13. Federica Ceron & Stéphane Gonzalez, 2019. "A characterization of Approval Voting without the approval balloting assumption," Working Papers halshs-02440615, HAL.
    14. Barberà, Salvador & Bossert, Walter & Moreno-Ternero, Juan D., 2023. "Wine rankings and the Borda method," Journal of Wine Economics, Cambridge University Press, vol. 18(2), pages 122-138, May.
    15. Kelly, Jerry S. & Qi, Shaofang, 2019. "Balancedness of social choice correspondences," Mathematical Social Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 102(C), pages 59-67.
    16. Eyal Baharad & Leif Danziger, 2018. "Voting in Hiring Committees: Which "Almost" Rule is Optimal?," CESifo Working Paper Series 6851, CESifo.
    17. Baharad, Eyal & Danziger, Leif, 2018. "Voting in Hiring Committees: Which "Almost" Rule Is Optimal?," IZA Discussion Papers 11287, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    18. Walter Bossert & Kotaro Suzumura, 2020. "Positionalist voting rules: a general definition and axiomatic characterizations," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 55(1), pages 85-116, June.
    19. Alcalde-Unzu, Jorge & Vorsatz, Marc, 2014. "Non-anonymous ballot aggregation: An axiomatic generalization of Approval Voting," Journal of Mathematical Economics, Elsevier, vol. 50(C), pages 69-78.
    20. Marchant, Thierry, 1998. "Cardinality and the borda score," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 108(2), pages 464-472, July.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    opinions; states of opinion; aggregation; Borda; majority and plurality rule; approval voting;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D71 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - Social Choice; Clubs; Committees; Associations
    • D72 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - Political Processes: Rent-seeking, Lobbying, Elections, Legislatures, and Voting Behavior

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:bge:wpaper:1262. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Bruno Guallar (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/bargses.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.