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A liberal paradox for judgment aggregation

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Author Info
Franz Dietrich (University of Konstanz)
Christian List (Dept. of Government, London School of Economics)

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Abstract

In the emerging literature on judgment (as opposed to preference) aggregation, expert rights or liberal rights have not been investigated yet. When a group forms collective beliefs, it may assign experts with special knowledge on certain propositions the right to determine the collective judgment on those propositions; and, when a group forms collective goals or desires, it may assign individuals specially affected by certain propositions similar rights on those propositions. We identify a problem similar to, but more general than, Sen's `liberal paradox': Under plausible conditions, the assignment of such rights to two or more individuals (or subgroups) is inconsistent with the unanimity principle, whereby propositions accepted by all individuals must be collectively accepted. So a group respecting expert or liberal rights on certain propositions must sometimes overrule its unanimous judgments on others. The inconsistency does not arise if either different individuals' rights are `disconnected' or individuals are `agnostic/tolerant' or `deferring/empathetic' towards other individuals' rights. Our findings have implications for the design of mechanisms by which groups (societies, committees, expert panels, organizations) can reach decisions on systems of interconnected propositions.

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Paper provided by EconWPA in its series Public Economics with number 0405003.

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Length: 20 pages
Date of creation: 11 May 2004
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Handle: RePEc:wpa:wuwppe:0405003

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Related research
Keywords: liberal paradox; liberal right; expert right; subgroup rights; unanimity principle; judgment aggregation; empathy; deferral; tolerance; agnosticism;

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Find related papers by JEL classification:
D70 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - General
D71 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - Social Choice; Clubs; Committees; Associations

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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.:
  1. Sen, Amartya, 1970. "The Impossibility of a Paretian Liberal," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 78(1), pages 152-57, Jan.-Feb.. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  2. Dietrich, Franz, 2007. "Aggregation theory and the relevance of some issues to others," Research Memoranda 024, Maastricht : METEOR, Maastricht Research School of Economics of Technology and Organization. [Downloadable!]
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  3. Wilson, Robert, 1975. "On the theory of aggregation," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 10(1), pages 89-99, February. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  4. Blau, Julian H, 1975. "Liberal Values and Independence," Review of Economic Studies, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 42(3), pages 395-401, July. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  5. Deb, Rajat & Pattanaik, Prasanta K. & Razzolini, Laura, 1997. "Game Forms, Rights, and the Efficiency of Social Outcomes," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 72(1), pages 74-95, January. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  6. Franz Dietrich & Christian List, 2005. "Arrow's Theorem in Judgement Aggregation," Public Economics 0504007, EconWPA, revised 10 Sep 2005. [Downloadable!]
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  7. Dietrich, Franz, 2006. "Judgment aggregation: (im)possibility theorems," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 126(1), pages 286-298, January. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  8. Dietrich, Franz, 2007. "A generalised model of judgment aggregation," Open Access publications from Maastricht University urn:nbn:nl:ui:27-15416, Maastricht University. [Downloadable!]
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  9. Rubinstein, Ariel & Fishburn, Peter C., 1986. "Algebraic aggregation theory," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 38(1), pages 63-77, February. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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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.)

  1. Franz Dietrich, 2007. "A generalised model of judgment aggregation," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer, vol. 28(4), pages 529-565, June. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
    Other versions:
  2. Christian List & Ben Polak, 2010. "Introduction to Judgment Aggregation," Levine's Working Paper Archive 661465000000000006, David K. Levine. [Downloadable!]
    Other versions:
  3. Richard Bradley, 2007. "Reaching a consensus," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer, vol. 29(4), pages 609-632, December. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  4. Klaus Nehring, 2005. "The (Im)Possibility of a Paretian Rational," Economics Working Papers 0068, Institute for Advanced Study, School of Social Science. [Downloadable!]
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