IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/hal/wpaper/halshs-01597720.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Generalized Measures of Polarization in Preferences

Author

Listed:
  • Burak Can

    (School of Business and Economics, Maastricht University - Department of Economics)

  • Ali Ihsan Ozkes

    (GREQAM - Groupement de Recherche en Économie Quantitative d'Aix-Marseille - EHESS - École des hautes études en sciences sociales - AMU - Aix Marseille Université - ECM - École Centrale de Marseille - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique)

  • Ton Storcken

    (Department of Quantitative Economics [Maastricht] - Maastricht University [Maastricht])

Abstract

We provide axiomatic characterizations for measures of polarization in profiles of preferences that are represented as rankings of alternatives. Polarization is seen as the extent to which opinions are opposed. We provide characterizations for an extension of this simple intuition on the pairs of alternatives to the cases with more than two alternatives. Our primary generalization allows for different treatment among issues, i.e., pairs of alternatives. Secondly, we show that the characterization result continues to hold when preferences are allowed to attain indifferences. Finally, we show that we can also impose a domain restriction that only allows for single-peaked preferences and retain our characterization. Our results point to a fundamental feature of measures on profile of preferences that are based on pairwise comparisons of alternatives.

Suggested Citation

  • Burak Can & Ali Ihsan Ozkes & Ton Storcken, 2017. "Generalized Measures of Polarization in Preferences," Working Papers halshs-01597720, HAL.
  • Handle: RePEc:hal:wpaper:halshs-01597720
    Note: View the original document on HAL open archive server: https://shs.hal.science/halshs-01597720
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://shs.hal.science/halshs-01597720/document
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Halaburda, Hanna, 2010. "Unravelling in two-sided matching markets and similarity of preferences," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 69(2), pages 365-393, July.
    2. Esteban, Joan & Ray, Debraj, 1994. "On the Measurement of Polarization," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 62(4), pages 819-851, July.
    3. Alexander Karpov, 2017. "Preference Diversity Orderings," Group Decision and Negotiation, Springer, vol. 26(4), pages 753-774, July.
    4. Can, Burak & Ozkes, Ali Ihsan & Storcken, Ton, 2015. "Measuring polarization in preferences," Mathematical Social Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 78(C), pages 76-79.
    5. Katherine Baldiga & Jerry Green, 2013. "Assent-maximizing social choice," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 40(2), pages 439-460, February.
    6. Lepelley, Dominique & Valognes, Fabrice, 2003. "Voting Rules, Manipulability and Social Homogeneity," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 116(1-2), pages 165-184, July.
    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. Huremović, Kenan & Ozkes, Ali I., 2022. "Polarization in networks: Identification–alienation framework," Journal of Mathematical Economics, Elsevier, vol. 102(C).

    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. Jansen, C. & Schollmeyer, G. & Augustin, T., 2018. "A probabilistic evaluation framework for preference aggregation reflecting group homogeneity," Mathematical Social Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 96(C), pages 49-62.
    2. Huremović, Kenan & Ozkes, Ali I., 2022. "Polarization in networks: Identification–alienation framework," Journal of Mathematical Economics, Elsevier, vol. 102(C).
    3. Can, Burak & Ozkes, Ali Ihsan & Storcken, Ton, 2015. "Measuring polarization in preferences," Mathematical Social Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 78(C), pages 76-79.
    4. Salvatore Barbaro, 2021. "A social-choice perspective on authoritarianism and political polarization," Working Papers 2108, Gutenberg School of Management and Economics, Johannes Gutenberg-Universität Mainz.
    5. Alexander Karpov, 2017. "Preference Diversity Orderings," Group Decision and Negotiation, Springer, vol. 26(4), pages 753-774, July.
    6. Leopoldo Fergusson & Carlos Molina, 2020. "Facebook Causes Protests," HiCN Working Papers 323, Households in Conflict Network.
    7. Scott Rozelle & Yiran Xia & Dimitris Friesen & Bronson Vanderjack & Nourya Cohen, 2020. "Moving Beyond Lewis: Employment and Wage Trends in China’s High- and Low-Skilled Industries and the Emergence of an Era of Polarization," Comparative Economic Studies, Palgrave Macmillan;Association for Comparative Economic Studies, vol. 62(4), pages 555-589, December.
    8. Klaus Desmet & Ignacio Ortuño-Ortín & Romain Wacziarg, 2009. "The political economy of ethnolinguistic cleavages," Working Papers 2009-17, Instituto Madrileño de Estudios Avanzados (IMDEA) Ciencias Sociales.
    9. Muriel Niederle & Alvin E. Roth, 2009. "The Effects of a Centralized Clearinghouse on Job Placement, Wages, and Hiring Practices," NBER Chapters, in: Studies of Labor Market Intermediation, pages 235-271, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    10. Jo Thori Lind & Karl Moene, 2011. "Miserly Developments," Journal of Development Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 47(9), pages 1332-1352, June.
    11. Janus, Thorsten & Riera-Crichton, Daniel, 2015. "Economic shocks, civil war and ethnicity," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 115(C), pages 32-44.
    12. Teixidó-Figueras, J. & Duro, J.A., 2014. "Spatial Polarization of the Ecological Footprint Distribution," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 104(C), pages 93-106.
    13. Alberto Alesina & Johann Harnoss & Hillel Rapoport, 2016. "Birthplace diversity and economic prosperity," Journal of Economic Growth, Springer, vol. 21(2), pages 101-138, June.
    14. Liu, Shen & Maharaj, Elizabeth Ann & Inder, Brett, 2014. "Polarization of forecast densities: A new approach to time series classification," Computational Statistics & Data Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 70(C), pages 345-361.
    15. Victor Ginsburgh & Shlomo Weber, 2020. "The Economics of Language," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 58(2), pages 348-404, June.
    16. Francesco Caselli & Wilbur John Coleman II, 2013. "On The Theory Of Ethnic Conflict," Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 11, pages 161-192, January.
    17. Chakravarty, Satya R. & Sarkar, Palash, 2022. "A synthesis of local and effective tax progressivity measurement," MPRA Paper 115180, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    18. Alesina, Alberto & Devleeschauwer, Arnaud & Easterly, William & Kurlat, Sergio & Wacziarg, Romain, 2003. "Fractionalization," Journal of Economic Growth, Springer, vol. 8(2), pages 155-194, June.
    19. Jose Apesteguia & Miguel A. Ballester, 2015. "A Measure of Rationality and Welfare," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 123(6), pages 1278-1310.
    20. James Boudreau & Vicki Knoblauch, 2013. "Preferences and the price of stability in matching markets," Theory and Decision, Springer, vol. 74(4), pages 565-589, April.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    polarization; measurement; social choice; single-peaked preferences;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D63 - Microeconomics - - Welfare Economics - - - Equity, Justice, Inequality, and Other Normative Criteria and Measurement
    • D71 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - Social Choice; Clubs; Committees; Associations
    • D72 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - Political Processes: Rent-seeking, Lobbying, Elections, Legislatures, and Voting Behavior
    • D74 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - Conflict; Conflict Resolution; Alliances; Revolutions

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:hal:wpaper:halshs-01597720. 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: CCSD (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/ .

    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.