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Respect for experts vs. respect for unanimity: The liberal paradox in probabilistic opinion pooling

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  • Herzberg, Frederik

Abstract

Amartya Sen (1970) has shown that three natural desiderata for social choice rules are inconsistent: universal domain, respect for unanimity, and respect for some minimal rights—which can be interpreted as either “expert rights” (an expert’s right to have her competence respected) or liberal rights. Dietrich and List (2008) have generalised this result to the setting of binary judgement aggregation. This paper proves that the paradox of a Paretian liberal holds even in the framework of probabilistic opinion pooling and discusses options to circumvent this impossibility result: (i) restricting the aggregator domain to profiles with no potential for conflicting rights; (ii) avoiding agendas where all issues are pairwise entangled (interdependent).

Suggested Citation

  • Herzberg, Frederik, 2017. "Respect for experts vs. respect for unanimity: The liberal paradox in probabilistic opinion pooling," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 151(C), pages 44-47.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:ecolet:v:151:y:2017:i:c:p:44-47
    DOI: 10.1016/j.econlet.2016.12.012
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. Philippe Mongin, 2012. "The doctrinal paradox, the discursive dilemma, and logical aggregation theory," Theory and Decision, Springer, vol. 73(3), pages 315-355, September.
    2. Sen, Amartya Kumar, 1970. "The Impossibility of a Paretian Liberal," Scholarly Articles 3612779, Harvard University Department of Economics.
    3. Sen, Amartya, 1970. "The Impossibility of a Paretian Liberal," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 78(1), pages 152-157, Jan.-Feb..
    4. Franz Dietrich & Christian List, 2008. "A liberal paradox for judgment aggregation," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 31(1), pages 59-78, June.
    5. Anand, Paul & Pattanaik, Prasanta & Puppe, Clemens (ed.), 2009. "The Handbook of Rational and Social Choice," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780199290420.
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    Cited by:

    1. Kretz, Claudio, 2021. "Consistent rights on property spaces," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 197(C).

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Probabilistic opinion pooling; Sen’s liberal paradox; Expert rights; Liberal rights; Unanimity; General aggregation theory;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D71 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - Social Choice; Clubs; Committees; Associations
    • D82 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Asymmetric and Private Information; Mechanism Design
    • C11 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Econometric and Statistical Methods and Methodology: General - - - Bayesian Analysis: General

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