IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/spr/sochwe/v37y2011i3p493-509.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Multi-profile intergenerational social choice

Author

Listed:
  • Walter Bossert
  • Kotaro Suzumura

Abstract

Ferejohn and Page transplanted a stationarity axiom from Koopmans' theory of impatience into Arrow's social choice theory with an infinite horizon and showed that the Arrow axioms and stationarity lead to a dictatorship by the first generation. We prove that the negative implications of their stationarity axiom are more far-reaching: there is no Arrow social welfare function satisfying their stationarity axiom. We propose a more suitable stationarity axiom, and show that an Arrow social welfare function satisfies this modified version if and only if it is a lexicographic dictatorship where the generations are taken into consideration in chronological order.
(This abstract was borrowed from another version of this item.)

Suggested Citation

  • Walter Bossert & Kotaro Suzumura, 2011. "Multi-profile intergenerational social choice," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 37(3), pages 493-509, September.
    • Handle: RePEc:spr:sochwe:v:37:y:2011:i:3:p:493-509
    DOI: 10.1007/s00355-010-0501-6
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1007/s00355-010-0501-6
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1007/s00355-010-0501-6?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to look for a different version below or search for a different version of it.

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Geir B. Asheim & Tapan Mitra & Bertil Tungodden, 2007. "A New Equity Condition for Infinite Utility Streams and the Possibility of being Paretian," International Economic Association Series, in: John Roemer & Kotaro Suzumura (ed.), Intergenerational Equity and Sustainability, chapter 4, pages 55-68, Palgrave Macmillan.
    2. Kaushik Basu & Tapan Mitra, 2003. "Aggregating Infinite Utility Streams with InterGenerational Equity: The Impossibility of Being Paretian," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 71(5), pages 1557-1563, September.
    3. Sen, Amartya K, 1979. "Personal Utilities and Public Judgements: Or What's Wrong with Welfare Economics?," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 89(355), pages 537-558, September.
    4. Kirman, Alan P. & Sondermann, Dieter, 1972. "Arrow's theorem, many agents, and invisible dictators," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 5(2), pages 267-277, October.
    5. Bossert, Walter & Sprumont, Yves & Suzumura, Kotaro, 2007. "Ordering infinite utility streams," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 135(1), pages 579-589, July.
    6. Sen, Amartya, 1995. "Rationality and Social Choice," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 85(1), pages 1-24, March.
    7. Kotaro Suzumura, 1999. "Welfare Economics Beyond Welfarist-Consequentialism," Discussion Paper Series a382, Institute of Economic Research, Hitotsubashi University.
    8. Fishburn, Peter C., 1970. "Arrow's impossibility theorem: Concise proof and infinite voters," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 2(1), pages 103-106, March.
    9. Hammond, Peter J, 1976. "Equity, Arrow's Conditions, and Rawls' Difference Principle," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 44(4), pages 793-804, July.
    10. Chiaki Hara & Tomoichi Shinotsuka & Kotaro Suzumura & Yongsheng Xu, 2008. "Continuity and egalitarianism in the evaluation of infinite utility streams," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 31(2), pages 179-191, August.
    11. Campbell, Donald E., 1990. "Intergenerational social choice without the Pareto principle," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 50(2), pages 414-423, April.
    12. John Ferejohn & Talbot Page, 1978. "On the Foundations of Intertemporal Choice," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 60(2), pages 269-275.
    13. Edward Packel, 1980. "Impossibility results in the axiomatic theory of intertemporal choice," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 35(2), pages 219-227, January.
    14. Basu, Kaushik & Mitra, Tapan, 2007. "Utilitarianism for infinite utility streams: A new welfare criterion and its axiomatic characterization," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 133(1), pages 350-373, March.
    15. Tjalling C. Koopmans, 1959. "Stationary Ordinal Utility and Impatience," Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers 81, Cowles Foundation for Research in Economics, Yale University.
    16. Svensson, Lars-Gunnar, 1980. "Equity among Generations," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 48(5), pages 1251-1256, July.
    17. Bengt Hansson, 1976. "The existence of group preference functions," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 28(1), pages 89-98, December.
    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


    Cited by:

    1. Shino Takayama & Akira Yokotani, 2017. "Social choice correspondences with infinitely many agents: serial dictatorship," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 48(3), pages 573-598, March.
    2. Susumu Cato, 2013. "Social choice, the strong Pareto principle, and conditional decisiveness," Theory and Decision, Springer, vol. 75(4), pages 563-579, October.
    3. BOSSERT, Walter & SUZUMURA, Kotaro, 2009. "Decisive coalitions and coherence properties," Cahiers de recherche 2009-04, Universite de Montreal, Departement de sciences economiques.
    4. Susumu Cato, 2022. "Stable preference aggregation with infinite population," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 59(2), pages 287-304, August.
    5. Cato, Susumu, 2021. "Preference aggregation and atoms in measures," Journal of Mathematical Economics, Elsevier, vol. 94(C).
    6. Walter Bossert & Kotaro Suzumura, 2012. "Multi-Profile Intertemporal Social Choice," Cahiers de recherche 09-2012, Centre interuniversitaire de recherche en économie quantitative, CIREQ.
    7. Chichilnisky, Graciela & Hammond, Peter J. & Stern, Nicholas, 2018. "Should We Discount the Welfare of Future Generations? Ramsey and Suppes versus Koopmans and Arrow," CAGE Online Working Paper Series 386, Competitive Advantage in the Global Economy (CAGE).
    8. Susumu Cato, 2020. "Quasi-stationary social welfare functions," Theory and Decision, Springer, vol. 89(1), pages 85-106, July.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Walter Bossert & Kotaro Suzumura, 2012. "Multi-Profile Intertemporal Social Choice," Cahiers de recherche 09-2012, Centre interuniversitaire de recherche en économie quantitative, CIREQ.
    2. Susumu Cato, 2020. "Quasi-stationary social welfare functions," Theory and Decision, Springer, vol. 89(1), pages 85-106, July.
    3. Walter Bossert & Kotaro Suzumura, 2015. "Multi-Profile Intertemporal Social Choice: A Survey," Studies in Choice and Welfare, in: Constanze Binder & Giulio Codognato & Miriam Teschl & Yongsheng Xu (ed.), Individual and Collective Choice and Social Welfare, edition 127, pages 109-126, Springer.
    4. BOSSERT, Walter & SUZUMURA, Kotaro, 2009. "Decisive coalitions and coherence properties," Cahiers de recherche 2009-04, Universite de Montreal, Departement de sciences economiques.
    5. Geir B. Asheim & Tapan Mitra & Bertil Tungodden, 2016. "Sustainable Recursive Social Welfare Functions," Studies in Economic Theory, in: Graciela Chichilnisky & Armon Rezai (ed.), The Economics of the Global Environment, pages 165-190, Springer.
    6. Susumu Cato, 2013. "Quasi-decisiveness, quasi-ultrafilter, and social quasi-orderings," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 41(1), pages 169-202, June.
    7. José Carlos R. Alcantud & María D. García-Sanz, 2013. "Evaluations of Infinite Utility Streams: Pareto Efficient and Egalitarian Axiomatics," Metroeconomica, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 64(3), pages 432-447, July.
    8. Bossert, Walter & Suzumura, Kotaro, 2012. "Product filters, acyclicity and Suzumura consistency," Mathematical Social Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 64(3), pages 258-262.
    9. Geir Asheim & Walter Bossert & Yves Sprumont & Kotaro Suzumura, 2010. "Infinite-horizon choice functions," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 43(1), pages 1-21, April.
    10. Dubey, Ram Sewak & Mitra, Tapan, 2014. "On construction of equitable social welfare orders on infinite utility streams," Mathematical Social Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 71(C), pages 53-60.
    11. Asheim, Geir B. & d'Aspremont, Claude & Banerjee, Kuntal, 2010. "Generalized time-invariant overtaking," Journal of Mathematical Economics, Elsevier, vol. 46(4), pages 519-533, July.
    12. Alcantud, José Carlos R., 2012. "Inequality averse criteria for evaluating infinite utility streams: The impossibility of Weak Pareto," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 147(1), pages 353-363.
    13. Susumu Cato, 2010. "Brief proofs of Arrovian impossibility theorems," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 35(2), pages 267-284, July.
    14. Dubey, Ram Sewak, 2016. "On construction of social welfare orders satisfying Hammond equity and Weak Pareto axioms," Mathematical Social Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 84(C), pages 119-124.
    15. Michele Lombardi & Kaname Miyagishima & Roberto Veneziani, 2016. "Liberal Egalitarianism and the Harm Principle," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 126(597), pages 2173-2196, November.
    16. Ram Sewak Dubey & Tapan Mitra, 2011. "On equitable social welfare functions satisfying the Weak Pareto Axiom: A complete characterization," International Journal of Economic Theory, The International Society for Economic Theory, vol. 7(3), pages 231-250, September.
    17. Lauwers, Luc, 2010. "Ordering infinite utility streams comes at the cost of a non-Ramsey set," Journal of Mathematical Economics, Elsevier, vol. 46(1), pages 32-37, January.
    18. Henrik Petri, 2019. "Asymptotic properties of welfare relations," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 67(4), pages 853-874, June.
    19. Geir Asheim & Stéphane Zuber, 2013. "A complete and strongly anonymous leximin relation on infinite streams," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 41(4), pages 819-834, October.
    20. d’ASPREMONT, Claude, 2005. "Formal welfarism and intergenerational equity," LIDAM Discussion Papers CORE 2005075, Université catholique de Louvain, Center for Operations Research and Econometrics (CORE).

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • D71 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - Social Choice; Clubs; Committees; Associations

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:spr:sochwe:v:37:y:2011:i:3:p:493-509. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    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 CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc 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 RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.springer.com .

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

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.