In spatial environments, we consider social welfare functions satisfying Arrow's requirements. i.e., weak Pareto and independence of irrelevant alternatives. When the policy space os a one-dimensional continuum, such a welfare function is determined by a collection of 2n strictly quasi-concave preferences and a tie-breaking rule. As a corrollary, we obtain that when the number of voters is odd, simple majority voting is transitive if and only if each voter's preference is strictly quasi-concave. When the policy space is multi-dimensional, we establish Arrow's impossibility theorem. Among others, we show that weak Pareto, independence of irrelevant alternatives, and non-dictatorship are inconsistent if the set of alternatives has a non-empty interior and it is compact and convex.
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Paper provided by Centre interuniversitaire de recherche en économie quantitative, CIREQ in its series Cahiers de recherche with number
2002-03.
Find related papers by JEL classification: D71 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - Social Choice; Clubs; Committees; Associations D70 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - General
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Cited by: (explanations, 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.)
Ehlers, Lars & Storcken, Ton, 2007.
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[Downloadable!]
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Walter Bossert & Hans Peters, 2009.
"Single-peaked choice,"
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[Downloadable!] (restricted)
Other versions:
BOSSERT, Walter & PETERS, Hans, 2006.
"Single-Peaked Choice,"
Cahiers de recherche
2006-14, Universite de Montreal, Departement de sciences economiques.
[Downloadable!]
Bossert, Walter & Peters, Hans, 2006.
"Single-peaked choice,"
Research Memoranda
037, Maastricht : METEOR, Maastricht Research School of Economics of Technology and Organization.
[Downloadable!]
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