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Spectral Aggregation of Quantile Preferences

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  • Van-Quy Nguyen

Abstract

Many collective decisions under risk are made by people who care about different parts of the outcome distribution: downside losses, typical performance, or upside gains. This paper models this disagreement with quantile preferences and studies how the represented quantile levels can be aggregated. Our main result is a spectral support theorem: a spectral social aggregation satisfies the Pareto principle if and only if its social spectrum puts mass only on quantile levels represented in society. Hence, Pareto consistency makes representative-quantile aggregation a dictatorial case. In addition, we derive spectral aggregation from rank-based axioms, develop finite and threshold-Pareto consequences, and show when local benchmark-affine and elliptical common-shape domains admit a representative-quantile reduction.

Suggested Citation

  • Van-Quy Nguyen, 2026. "Spectral Aggregation of Quantile Preferences," Papers 2606.30074, arXiv.org, revised Jun 2026.
    • Handle: RePEc:arx:papers:2606.30074
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    References listed on IDEAS

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