Author: Eric Maskin
Publisher: Columbia University Press
ISBN: 0231153287
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 164
Book Description
Kenneth Arrow's pathbreaking Òimpossibility theoremÓ was a watershed in the history of welfare economics, voting theory, and collective choice, demonstrating that there is no voting rule that satisfies the four desirable axioms of decisiveness, consensus, nondictatorship, and independence. In this book, Amartya Sen and Eric Maskin explore the implications of ArrowÕs theorem. Sen considers its ongoing utility, exploring the theoremÕs value and limitations in relation to recent research on social reasoning, while Maskin discusses how to design a voting rule that gets us closer to the idealÑgiven that achieving the ideal is impossible. The volume also contains a contextual introduction by social choice scholar Prasanta K. Pattanaik and commentaries from Joseph E. Stiglitz and Kenneth Arrow himself, as well as essays by Sen and Maskin outlining the mathematical proof and framework behind their assertions.
The Arrow Impossibility Theorem
Author: Eric Maskin
Publisher: Columbia University Press
ISBN: 0231153287
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 164
Book Description
Kenneth Arrow's pathbreaking Òimpossibility theoremÓ was a watershed in the history of welfare economics, voting theory, and collective choice, demonstrating that there is no voting rule that satisfies the four desirable axioms of decisiveness, consensus, nondictatorship, and independence. In this book, Amartya Sen and Eric Maskin explore the implications of ArrowÕs theorem. Sen considers its ongoing utility, exploring the theoremÕs value and limitations in relation to recent research on social reasoning, while Maskin discusses how to design a voting rule that gets us closer to the idealÑgiven that achieving the ideal is impossible. The volume also contains a contextual introduction by social choice scholar Prasanta K. Pattanaik and commentaries from Joseph E. Stiglitz and Kenneth Arrow himself, as well as essays by Sen and Maskin outlining the mathematical proof and framework behind their assertions.
Publisher: Columbia University Press
ISBN: 0231153287
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 164
Book Description
Kenneth Arrow's pathbreaking Òimpossibility theoremÓ was a watershed in the history of welfare economics, voting theory, and collective choice, demonstrating that there is no voting rule that satisfies the four desirable axioms of decisiveness, consensus, nondictatorship, and independence. In this book, Amartya Sen and Eric Maskin explore the implications of ArrowÕs theorem. Sen considers its ongoing utility, exploring the theoremÕs value and limitations in relation to recent research on social reasoning, while Maskin discusses how to design a voting rule that gets us closer to the idealÑgiven that achieving the ideal is impossible. The volume also contains a contextual introduction by social choice scholar Prasanta K. Pattanaik and commentaries from Joseph E. Stiglitz and Kenneth Arrow himself, as well as essays by Sen and Maskin outlining the mathematical proof and framework behind their assertions.
Social Choice and Individual Values
Author: Kenneth J. Arrow
Publisher: Yale University Press
ISBN: 0300186983
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 347
Book Description
Originally published in 1951, "Social Choice and Individual Values" introduced "Arrow's Impossibility Theorem" and founded the field of social choice theory in economics and political science. This new edition, including a new foreword by Nobel laureate Eric Maskin, reintroduces Arrow's seminal book to a new generation of students and researchers."Far beyond a classic, this small book unleashed the ongoing explosion of interest in social choice and voting theory. A half-century later, the book remains full of profound insight: its central message, 'Arrow's Theorem, ' has changed the way we think."--Donald G. Saari, author of "Decisions and Elections: Explaining the Unexpected "
Publisher: Yale University Press
ISBN: 0300186983
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 347
Book Description
Originally published in 1951, "Social Choice and Individual Values" introduced "Arrow's Impossibility Theorem" and founded the field of social choice theory in economics and political science. This new edition, including a new foreword by Nobel laureate Eric Maskin, reintroduces Arrow's seminal book to a new generation of students and researchers."Far beyond a classic, this small book unleashed the ongoing explosion of interest in social choice and voting theory. A half-century later, the book remains full of profound insight: its central message, 'Arrow's Theorem, ' has changed the way we think."--Donald G. Saari, author of "Decisions and Elections: Explaining the Unexpected "
Majority Judgment
Author: Michel Balinski
Publisher: MIT Press
ISBN: 0262545713
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 431
Book Description
An account of a new theory and method of voting, judging and ranking, majority judgment, shown to be superior to all other known methods. In Majority Judgment, Michel Balinski and Rida Laraki argue that the traditional theory of social choice offers no acceptable solution to the problems of how to elect, to judge, or to rank. They find that the traditional model—transforming the "preference lists" of individuals into a "preference list" of society—is fundamentally flawed in both theory and practice. Balinski and Laraki propose a more realistic model. It leads to an entirely new theory and method—majority judgment—proven superior to all known methods. It is at once meaningful, resists strategic manipulation, elicits honesty, and is not subject to the classical paradoxes encountered in practice, notably Condorcet's and Arrow's. They offer theoretical, practical, and experimental evidence—from national elections to figure skating competitions—to support their arguments. Drawing on insights from wine, sports, music, and other competitions, Balinski and Laraki argue that the question should not be how to transform many individual rankings into a single collective ranking, but rather, after defining a common language of grades to measure merit, how to transform the many individual evaluations of each competitor into a single collective evaluation of all competitors. The crux of the matter is a new model in which the traditional paradigm—to compare—is replaced by a new paradigm—to evaluate.
Publisher: MIT Press
ISBN: 0262545713
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 431
Book Description
An account of a new theory and method of voting, judging and ranking, majority judgment, shown to be superior to all other known methods. In Majority Judgment, Michel Balinski and Rida Laraki argue that the traditional theory of social choice offers no acceptable solution to the problems of how to elect, to judge, or to rank. They find that the traditional model—transforming the "preference lists" of individuals into a "preference list" of society—is fundamentally flawed in both theory and practice. Balinski and Laraki propose a more realistic model. It leads to an entirely new theory and method—majority judgment—proven superior to all known methods. It is at once meaningful, resists strategic manipulation, elicits honesty, and is not subject to the classical paradoxes encountered in practice, notably Condorcet's and Arrow's. They offer theoretical, practical, and experimental evidence—from national elections to figure skating competitions—to support their arguments. Drawing on insights from wine, sports, music, and other competitions, Balinski and Laraki argue that the question should not be how to transform many individual rankings into a single collective ranking, but rather, after defining a common language of grades to measure merit, how to transform the many individual evaluations of each competitor into a single collective evaluation of all competitors. The crux of the matter is a new model in which the traditional paradigm—to compare—is replaced by a new paradigm—to evaluate.
Arrow's Impossibility Theorem in Practice
Author: Johannes König
Publisher: GRIN Verlag
ISBN: 3668832617
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 21
Book Description
Seminar paper from the year 2018 in the subject Politics - General and Theories of International Politics, grade: 1,7, University of Bayreuth, language: English, abstract: Accurately figuring out the cumulative ordering of preferences of an entire society as an aggregation of the orderings of preferences of many individuals would inherently simplify democratic decision processes. However, the social preference ordering is contingent on the specific procedure, or voting rule, used to aggregate the individual preference orderings. This means that different voting rules can lead to different social preference orderings under the input of the same individual preference orderings. This issue effectuates the questions which of the different possible outcomes is the most legitimate, and by extension which voting rule should be used. Arrow sought to answer these questions by demanding that voting rules satisfy a particular set of democratically desirable qualities – these are referred to as axioms or conditions. A voting rule that succeeds in complying with all the conditions could be considered democratically legitimate. The emerging issue is that no voting rule can possibly satisfy all theconditions simultaneously. The blatant preliminary conclusion of this impossibility theorem is somewhat bleak: our faith in democratic voting procedures might be entirely misguided. The aim of this paper is to ascertain, whether the implications of this impossibility theorem constitute an actual issue for the practical application of preference aggregation – or voting – in a democratic political system. Having argued that certain evasions of the impossibility can be practically justified in most cases, the paper will conclude that the impossibility is only relevant for a negligible number of scenarios. Thus, inferring that in most cases Arrow’s impossibility theorem, albeit theoretically relevant, does not constitute a profound issue for voting procedures in a democratic political system.
Publisher: GRIN Verlag
ISBN: 3668832617
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 21
Book Description
Seminar paper from the year 2018 in the subject Politics - General and Theories of International Politics, grade: 1,7, University of Bayreuth, language: English, abstract: Accurately figuring out the cumulative ordering of preferences of an entire society as an aggregation of the orderings of preferences of many individuals would inherently simplify democratic decision processes. However, the social preference ordering is contingent on the specific procedure, or voting rule, used to aggregate the individual preference orderings. This means that different voting rules can lead to different social preference orderings under the input of the same individual preference orderings. This issue effectuates the questions which of the different possible outcomes is the most legitimate, and by extension which voting rule should be used. Arrow sought to answer these questions by demanding that voting rules satisfy a particular set of democratically desirable qualities – these are referred to as axioms or conditions. A voting rule that succeeds in complying with all the conditions could be considered democratically legitimate. The emerging issue is that no voting rule can possibly satisfy all theconditions simultaneously. The blatant preliminary conclusion of this impossibility theorem is somewhat bleak: our faith in democratic voting procedures might be entirely misguided. The aim of this paper is to ascertain, whether the implications of this impossibility theorem constitute an actual issue for the practical application of preference aggregation – or voting – in a democratic political system. Having argued that certain evasions of the impossibility can be practically justified in most cases, the paper will conclude that the impossibility is only relevant for a negligible number of scenarios. Thus, inferring that in most cases Arrow’s impossibility theorem, albeit theoretically relevant, does not constitute a profound issue for voting procedures in a democratic political system.
Welfare Economics and Social Choice Theory
Author: Allan M. Feldman
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN: 038729368X
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 401
Book Description
This book covers the main topics of welfare economics — general equilibrium models of exchange and production, Pareto optimality, un certainty, externalities and public goods — and some of the major topics of social choice theory — compensation criteria, fairness, voting. Arrow's Theorem, and the theory of implementation. The underlying question is this: "Is a particular economic or voting mechanism good or bad for society?" Welfare economics is mainly about whether the market mechanism is good or bad; social choice is largely about whether voting mechanisms, or other more abstract mechanisms, can improve upon the results of the market. This second edition updates the material of the first, written by Allan Feldman. It incorporates new sections to existing first-edition chapters, and it includes several new ones. Chapters 4, 6, 11, 15 and 16 are new, added in this edition. The first edition of the book grew out of an undergraduate welfare economics course at Brown University. The book is intended for the undergraduate student who has some prior familiarity with microeconomics. However, the book is also useful for graduate students and professionals, economists and non-economists, who want an overview of welfare and social choice results unburdened by detail and mathematical complexity. Welfare economics and social choice both probably suffer from ex cessively technical treatments in professional journals and monographs.
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN: 038729368X
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 401
Book Description
This book covers the main topics of welfare economics — general equilibrium models of exchange and production, Pareto optimality, un certainty, externalities and public goods — and some of the major topics of social choice theory — compensation criteria, fairness, voting. Arrow's Theorem, and the theory of implementation. The underlying question is this: "Is a particular economic or voting mechanism good or bad for society?" Welfare economics is mainly about whether the market mechanism is good or bad; social choice is largely about whether voting mechanisms, or other more abstract mechanisms, can improve upon the results of the market. This second edition updates the material of the first, written by Allan Feldman. It incorporates new sections to existing first-edition chapters, and it includes several new ones. Chapters 4, 6, 11, 15 and 16 are new, added in this edition. The first edition of the book grew out of an undergraduate welfare economics course at Brown University. The book is intended for the undergraduate student who has some prior familiarity with microeconomics. However, the book is also useful for graduate students and professionals, economists and non-economists, who want an overview of welfare and social choice results unburdened by detail and mathematical complexity. Welfare economics and social choice both probably suffer from ex cessively technical treatments in professional journals and monographs.
Numbers Rule
Author: George Szpiro
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 0691209081
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 240
Book Description
The author takes the general reader on a tour of the mathematical puzzles and paradoxes inherent in voting systems, such as the Alabama Paradox, in which an increase in the number of seats in the Congress could actually lead to a reduced number of representatives for a state, and the Condorcet Paradox, which demonstrates that the winner of elections featuring more than two candidates does not necessarily reflect majority preferences. Szpiro takes a roughly chronological approach to the topic, traveling from ancient Greece to the present and, in addition to offering explanations of the various mathematical conundrums of elections and voting, also offers biographical details on the mathematicians and other thinkers who thought about them, including Plato, Pliny the Younger, Pierre Simon Laplace, Thomas Jefferson, John von Neumann, and Kenneth Arrow.
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 0691209081
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 240
Book Description
The author takes the general reader on a tour of the mathematical puzzles and paradoxes inherent in voting systems, such as the Alabama Paradox, in which an increase in the number of seats in the Congress could actually lead to a reduced number of representatives for a state, and the Condorcet Paradox, which demonstrates that the winner of elections featuring more than two candidates does not necessarily reflect majority preferences. Szpiro takes a roughly chronological approach to the topic, traveling from ancient Greece to the present and, in addition to offering explanations of the various mathematical conundrums of elections and voting, also offers biographical details on the mathematicians and other thinkers who thought about them, including Plato, Pliny the Younger, Pierre Simon Laplace, Thomas Jefferson, John von Neumann, and Kenneth Arrow.
Behavioral Social Choice
Author: Michel Regenwetter
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 0521829682
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 21
Book Description
Behavioral Social Choice looks at the probabilistic foundations of collective decision-making rules. The authors challenge much of the existing theoretical wisdom about social choice processes, and seek to restore faith in the possibility of democratic decision-making. In particular, they argue that worries about the supposed prevalence of majority rule cycles that would preclude groups from reaching a final decision about what alternative they prefer have been greatly overstated. In practice, majority rule can be expected to work well in most real-world settings. They provide new insights into how alternative model specifications can change our estimates of social orderings.
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 0521829682
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 21
Book Description
Behavioral Social Choice looks at the probabilistic foundations of collective decision-making rules. The authors challenge much of the existing theoretical wisdom about social choice processes, and seek to restore faith in the possibility of democratic decision-making. In particular, they argue that worries about the supposed prevalence of majority rule cycles that would preclude groups from reaching a final decision about what alternative they prefer have been greatly overstated. In practice, majority rule can be expected to work well in most real-world settings. They provide new insights into how alternative model specifications can change our estimates of social orderings.
Democracy for Realists
Author: Christopher H. Achen
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 1400888743
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 423
Book Description
Why our belief in government by the people is unrealistic—and what we can do about it Democracy for Realists assails the romantic folk-theory at the heart of contemporary thinking about democratic politics and government, and offers a provocative alternative view grounded in the actual human nature of democratic citizens. Christopher Achen and Larry Bartels deploy a wealth of social-scientific evidence, including ingenious original analyses of topics ranging from abortion politics and budget deficits to the Great Depression and shark attacks, to show that the familiar ideal of thoughtful citizens steering the ship of state from the voting booth is fundamentally misguided. They demonstrate that voters—even those who are well informed and politically engaged—mostly choose parties and candidates on the basis of social identities and partisan loyalties, not political issues. They also show that voters adjust their policy views and even their perceptions of basic matters of fact to match those loyalties. When parties are roughly evenly matched, elections often turn on irrelevant or misleading considerations such as economic spurts or downturns beyond the incumbents' control; the outcomes are essentially random. Thus, voters do not control the course of public policy, even indirectly. Achen and Bartels argue that democratic theory needs to be founded on identity groups and political parties, not on the preferences of individual voters. Now with new analysis of the 2016 elections, Democracy for Realists provides a powerful challenge to conventional thinking, pointing the way toward a fundamentally different understanding of the realities and potential of democratic government.
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 1400888743
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 423
Book Description
Why our belief in government by the people is unrealistic—and what we can do about it Democracy for Realists assails the romantic folk-theory at the heart of contemporary thinking about democratic politics and government, and offers a provocative alternative view grounded in the actual human nature of democratic citizens. Christopher Achen and Larry Bartels deploy a wealth of social-scientific evidence, including ingenious original analyses of topics ranging from abortion politics and budget deficits to the Great Depression and shark attacks, to show that the familiar ideal of thoughtful citizens steering the ship of state from the voting booth is fundamentally misguided. They demonstrate that voters—even those who are well informed and politically engaged—mostly choose parties and candidates on the basis of social identities and partisan loyalties, not political issues. They also show that voters adjust their policy views and even their perceptions of basic matters of fact to match those loyalties. When parties are roughly evenly matched, elections often turn on irrelevant or misleading considerations such as economic spurts or downturns beyond the incumbents' control; the outcomes are essentially random. Thus, voters do not control the course of public policy, even indirectly. Achen and Bartels argue that democratic theory needs to be founded on identity groups and political parties, not on the preferences of individual voters. Now with new analysis of the 2016 elections, Democracy for Realists provides a powerful challenge to conventional thinking, pointing the way toward a fundamentally different understanding of the realities and potential of democratic government.
A Refutation of Arrow's Theorem
Author: Howard DeLong
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 114
Book Description
To find more information on Rowman & Littlefield titles, please visit us at www.rowmanlittlefield.com.
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 114
Book Description
To find more information on Rowman & Littlefield titles, please visit us at www.rowmanlittlefield.com.
The Theory of Social Choice
Author: Peter C. Fishburn
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 1400868335
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 277
Book Description
One fundamental premise of democratic theory is that social policy, group choice, or collective action should be based on the preferences of the individuals in the society, group, or collective. Using the tools of formal mathematical analysis, Peter C. Fishburn explores and defines the conditions for social choice and methods for synthesizing individuals' preferences. This study is unique in its emphasis on social choice functions, the general position that individual indifference may not be transitive, and the use of certain mathematics such as linear algebra. The text is divided into three main parts: social choice between two alternatives, which examines a variety of majority-like functions; simple majority social choice, which focuses on social choice among many alternatives when two-element feasible subset choices are based on simple majority; and a general study of aspects and types of social choice functions for many alternatives. Originally published in 1973. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 1400868335
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 277
Book Description
One fundamental premise of democratic theory is that social policy, group choice, or collective action should be based on the preferences of the individuals in the society, group, or collective. Using the tools of formal mathematical analysis, Peter C. Fishburn explores and defines the conditions for social choice and methods for synthesizing individuals' preferences. This study is unique in its emphasis on social choice functions, the general position that individual indifference may not be transitive, and the use of certain mathematics such as linear algebra. The text is divided into three main parts: social choice between two alternatives, which examines a variety of majority-like functions; simple majority social choice, which focuses on social choice among many alternatives when two-element feasible subset choices are based on simple majority; and a general study of aspects and types of social choice functions for many alternatives. Originally published in 1973. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.