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Multiperson Utility

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Author Info
Manel Baucells (Universidad de Navarra)
Lloyd S. Shapley (University of California)
Abstract

We approach the problem of preference aggregation by endowing both individuals and coalitions with partially-ordered or incomplete cardinal preferences. Consistency across preferences for coalitions comes in the form of the Extended Pareto Rule: if two disjoint coalitions A and B prefer x to y, then so does the coalition A*B. The Extended Pareto Rule has important consequences for the social aggregation of individual preferences. Restricting attention to the case of complete individual preferences, and assuming complete preferences for some pairs of agents (interpersonal comparisons of utility units), we discover that the Extended Pareto Rule imposes a "no arbitrage" condition in the terms of utility comparison between agents. Furthermore, if all the individuals and pairs have complete preferences and certain non-degeneracy conditions are met, then we witness the emergence of a complete preference ordering for coalitions of all sizes. The corresponding utilities are a weighted sum of individual utilities, with the n-1 independent weights obtained from the preferences of n-1 pairs forming a spanning tree in the group. Keywords: Preference aggregation, Incomplete preferences, Extended Pareto Rule.

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Paper provided by Econometric Society in its series Econometric Society World Congress 2000 Contributed Papers with number 0078.

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Date of creation: 01 Aug 2000
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Handle: RePEc:ecm:wc2000:0078

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  1. Saposnik, Rubin, 1975. "Social Choice with Continuous Expression of Individual Preferences," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 43(4), pages 683-90, July. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  2. Amrita Dhillon & Jean-Francois Mertens, 1999. "Relative Utilitarianism," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 67(3), pages 471-498, May.
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  3. Kalai, Ehud & Schmeidler, David, 1977. "Aggregation Procedure for Cardinal Preferences: A Formulation and Proof of Samuelson's Impossibility Conjecture," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 45(6), pages 1431-38, September. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  4. Peter A. Diamond, 1967. "Cardinal Welfare, Individualistic Ethics, and Interpersonal Comparison of Utility: Comment," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 75, pages 765. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  5. DeMeyer, Frank & Plott, Charles R, 1971. "A Welfare Function Using 'Relative Intensity' of Preference," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, MIT Press, vol. 85(1), pages 179-86, February. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  6. Amrita Dhillon, 1998. "Extended Pareto rules and relative utilitarianism," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer, vol. 15(4), pages 521-542. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  7. Lloyd S. Shapley & Manel Baucells, 1998. "Multiperson Utility," UCLA Economics Working Papers 779, UCLA Department of Economics. [Downloadable!]
  8. John C. Harsanyi, 1955. "Cardinal Welfare, Individualistic Ethics, and Interpersonal Comparisons of Utility," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 63, pages 309. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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