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When is it (im)possible to respect all individuals' preferences under uncertainty?

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  • Kensei Nakamura

Abstract

When aggregating Subjective Expected Utility preferences, the Pareto principle leads to an impossibility result unless the individuals have a common belief. This paper examines the source of this impossibility in more detail by considering the aggregation of a general class of incomplete preferences that can represent gradual ambiguity perceptions. Our result shows that the planner cannot avoid ignoring some individuals unless there is a probability distribution that all individuals agree is most plausible. This means that even if individuals have similar ambiguity perceptions, the impossibility persists as long as some individual's most plausible belief differs even slightly from those of others.

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  • Kensei Nakamura, 2025. "When is it (im)possible to respect all individuals' preferences under uncertainty?," Papers 2508.12542, arXiv.org.
    • Handle: RePEc:arx:papers:2508.12542
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. Fabio Maccheroni & Massimo Marinacci & Aldo Rustichini, 2006. "Ambiguity Aversion, Robustness, and the Variational Representation of Preferences," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 74(6), pages 1447-1498, November.
    2. De Meyer, Bernard & Mongin, Philippe, 1995. "A note on affine aggregation," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 47(2), pages 177-183, February.
    3. Florian Brandl & Felix Brandt, 2020. "Arrovian Aggregation of Convex Preferences," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 88(2), pages 799-844, March.
    4. Hylland, Aanund & Zeckhauser, Richard J, 1979. "The Impossibility of Bayesian Group Decision Making with Separate Aggregation of Beliefs and Values," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 47(6), pages 1321-1336, November.
    5. Bach Dong-Xuan, 2024. "Aggregation of misspecified experts," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 78(3), pages 923-943, November.
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