Advanced Search
MyIDEAS: Login

Social Choice with Analytic Preferences

Contents:

Author Info

  • Michel LeBreton

    (CORE)

  • John A. Weymark

    (Vanderbilt University)

Abstract

A social welfare function is a mapping from a set of profiles of individual preference orderings to the set of social orderings of a universal set of alternatives. A social choice correspondence specifies a nonempty subset of the agenda for each admissible preference profile and each admissible agenda. We provide examples of economic and political preference domains for which the Arrow social welfare function axioms are inconsistent, but whose choice-theoretic counterparts (with nondictatorship strengthened to anonymity) yield a social choice correspondence possibility theorem when combined with a natural agenda domain. In both examples, agendas are compact subsets of the nonnegative orthant of a multidimensional Euclidean space. In our first possibility theorem, we consider the standard Euclidean spatial model used in many political models. An agenda can be interpreted as being the feasible vectors of public goods given the resource constraints faced by a legislature. Preferences are restricted to be Euclidean spatial preferences. Our second possibility theorem is for economic domains. Alternatives are interpreted as being vectors of public goods. Preferences are monotone and representable by an analytic utility function with no critical points. Convexity of preferences can also be assumed. Many of the utility functions used in economic models, such as Cobb-Douglas and CES, are analytic. Further, the set of monotone, convex, and analytic preference orderings is dense in the set of continuous, monotone, convex preference orderings. Thus, our preference domain is a large subset of the classical domain of economic preferences. An agenda can be interpreted as the set of feasible allocations given an initial resource endowment and the firms' production technologies. To establish this theorem, an ordinal version of the Analytic Continuation Principle is developed.

Download Info

If you experience problems downloading a file, check if you have the proper application to view it first. In case of further problems read the IDEAS help page. Note that these files are not on the IDEAS site. Please be patient as the files may be large.
File URL: http://fmwww.bc.edu/RePEc/es2000/1050.pdf
File Function: main text
Download Restriction: no

Bibliographic Info

Paper provided by Econometric Society in its series Econometric Society World Congress 2000 Contributed Papers with number 1050.

as in new window
Length:
Date of creation: 01 Aug 2000
Date of revision:
Handle: RePEc:ecm:wc2000:1050

Contact details of provider:
Phone: 1 212 998 3820
Fax: 1 212 995 4487
Email:
Web page: http://www.econometricsociety.org/pastmeetings.asp
More information through EDIRC

Related research

Keywords:

Other versions of this item:

Find related papers by JEL classification:

References

References listed on IDEAS
Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.:
as in new window
  1. LeBreton, M., 1994. "Arrovian Social Choice on Economic Domains," G.R.E.Q.A.M. 94a37, Universite Aix-Marseille III.
  2. Ehlers,Lars & Storcken,Ton, 2001. "Arrow's Theorem in Spatial Environments," Research Memoranda 006, Maastricht : METEOR, Maastricht Research School of Economics of Technology and Organization.
  3. Debreu, Gerard, 1972. "Smooth Preferences," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 40(4), pages 603-15, July.
  4. Debreu, Gerard, 1976. "Smooth Preferences: A Corrigendum," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 44(4), pages 831-32, July.
  5. Kannai, Yakar, 1970. "Continuity Properties of the Core of a Market," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 38(6), pages 791-815, November.
  6. Campbell, Donald E., 1993. "Euclidean individual preference and continuous social preference," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 9(4), pages 541-550, November.
  7. Donaldson, David & Weymark, John A., 1988. "Social choice in economic environments," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 46(2), pages 291-308, December.
  8. Kannai, Yakar, 1974. "Approximation of convex preferences," Journal of Mathematical Economics, Elsevier, vol. 1(2), pages 101-106, August.
  9. Walter Bossert & John A. Weymark, . "Utility in Social Choice," Old UBC Departmental Papers 9623, UBC Department of Economics.
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 in new window

Cited by:
  1. BOSSERT, Walter & WEYMARK, J.A., 2006. "Social Choice: Recent Developments," Cahiers de recherche 2006-01, Universite de Montreal, Departement de sciences economiques.
  2. EHLERS, Lars & STORCKEN, Ton, 2007. "Oligarchies in Spatial Environments," Cahiers de recherche 09-2007, Centre interuniversitaire de recherche en économie quantitative, CIREQ.
  3. EHLERS, Lars & STORCKEN, Ton, 2002. "Arrow's Theorem in Spatial Environments," Cahiers de recherche 2002-03, Universite de Montreal, Departement de sciences economiques.
  4. Michel Le Breton & John A. Weymark, 2002. "Arrovian Social Choice Theory on Economic Domains," Vanderbilt University Department of Economics Working Papers 0206, Vanderbilt University Department of Economics, revised Sep 2003.

Lists

This item is not listed on Wikipedia, on a reading list or among the top items on IDEAS.

Statistics

Access and download statistics

Corrections

When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:ecm:wc2000:1050

For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: (Christopher F. Baum).

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 references are entirely missing, you can add them using this form.

If the full references list an item that is present in RePEc, but the system did not link 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 profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

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