Search results for "social choice"

Collaborative Activities and Methods

2016

Having described the context for collaborative activities (in Chap. 1), and reviewed the basic aspects of computer supported decision-making activities (in Chap. 2), we will present in this section several specific methods used in collaborative decision making. The methods and techniques presented in the chapter are independent of the information technologies upon they are instantiated.

A Pedagogical Proof of Arrow's Impossibility Theorem

1999

In this note I consider a simple proof of Arrow's Impossibility Theorem (Arrow 1963). I start with the case of three individuals who have preferences on three alternatives. In this special case there are 133=2197 possible combinations of the three individuals' rational preferences. However, by considering the subset of linear preferences, and employing the full strength of the IIA axiom, I reduce the number of cases necessary to completely describe the SWF to a small number, allowing an elementary proof suitable for most undergraduate students. This special case conveys the nature of Arrow's result. It is well known that the restriction to three options is not really limiting (any larger se…

The ‘social choice’ of privatising urban water services: A case study of Madrid in Spain

2015

Abstract In countries where privatisation is permitted by law, policymakers usually provide different reasons of general interest to allow private companies to manage water services. However, these decisions often provoke intense political debate and are at times opposed by citizens. We illustrate how the Analytic Hierarchy Process can be used to introduce a political analysis regarding the management of water services. We analyse the recent decision taken by the Regional Government of Madrid (Spain) to part-privatise the management of water services. Our main result suggests that policymakers should reconsider the importance of citizen participation in the management of water services.

Measuring freedom of choice: An alternative view of a recent literature

2004

A recent literature has emerged in social choice theory which attributes intrinsic importance to freedom in the evaluation of states of affairs. The literature’s philosophical basis lies in Berlin’s notion of positive liberty. Accordingly, axiomatic measures of availability of choices are developed and the information they convey used for ranking states on the basis of the extent of liberty they offer to individuals. This paper argues that the literature’s contributions have taken Berlin’s analytical framework for granted exceedingly narrowing the philosophical terms of the debate. It is shown that, once freedom is analyzed from the perspective of an alternative structure, the triadic synta…

Autonomy Freedom and Preferences for Redistribution

2007

In this paper we study the determinants of people's attitudes toward income inequality and their consequences for redistributive policies. In the light of a recent literature in social choice theory, we argue that an individual's attitudes toward inequality depend upon the extent of autonomy freedom he/she enjoys. We use individual level data to validate our theory and show that the higher the extent of an individual's autonomy freedom, the greater the probability that he/she supports larger income differences as incentives for individual effort. Conversely, the lower the extent of autonomy freedom, the more likely he/she supports the view that incomes should be made more equal. These findi…

La notion de croissance chez Dewey et Rorty

2010

National audience; La notion de croissance revêt deux types d'aspects : quantitatif et qualitatif. Le premier évoque l'accroissement, l'augmentation ou le changement physiologique. Le deuxième concerne l'enrichissement, l'accomplissement de la personne ; il est lié à la tâche éducative. Les philosophes américains John Dewey et Richard Rorty s'accordent à souligner la "nécessaire indétermination" du terme "croissance", afin de laisser ouvertes les perspectives d'évolution. Cependant, leurs points de vue divergent quant à la valorisation des périodes de l'enfance. L'un souligne la créativité et la singularité de l'adolescence, tandis que l'autre se refuse à établir une telle distinction. L'an…

Abstract social choice and implementation in finite and infinite societies

2006

Opinion Dynamics and Collective Decisions

2021

We expect that democracy enables us to utilize collective intelligence such that our collective decisions build and enhance social welfare, and such that we accept their distributive and normative consequences. Collective decisions are produced by voting procedures which aggregate individual preferences and judgments. Before and after, individual preferences and judgments change as their underlying attitudes, values, and opinions change through discussion and deliberation. In large groups, these dynamics naturally go beyond the scope of the individual and consequently might show unexpected self-driven macroscopic systems dynamics following socio-physical laws. On the other hand, aggregated …

Social Choice in the Real World II: Cyclical Preferences and Strategic Voting in the Finnish Presidential Elections

1997

The empirical relevance of the theoretical results of social choice theory is still unclear. The most radical thesis, put forth by William Riker, is that politics is a highly unstable process, characterized by preference cycles and strategic voting. This article - a continuation of an earlier article published in this journal - examines the Finnish presidential election in 1925, 1931, 1937 and 1982. The conclusion is that preference cycle and strategic voting have had a significant impact in the discussed cases. The relevancy of the social choice approach and its relation to historical research are discussed.

Kenneth J. Arrow, Social Choice and Individual Values, New Haven 1951

2008

Kenneth Arrow (geb. 1921) erhielt fur seine Beitrage zur okonomischen Theorie 1972 zusammen mit John R. Hicks den Nobelpreis fur Wirtschaftswissenschaften. Bis zu seiner Emeritierung lehrte er als Professor fur Wirtschaftswissenschaften an der Stanford University. Seine Promotion „Social Choice and Individual Values“ gilt als grundlegende Arbeit der Forschung zu kollektiven Entscheidungen. Bei kollektiven Entscheidungen sind mehrere Individuen an einer gemeinsamen Entscheidungsfindung beteiligt. Die Entscheidungen beziehen sich auf die Auswahl einer Alternative aus einer Menge unterschiedlicher Moglichkeiten fur das Kollektiv. Dabei konnen die Beteiligten ganz unterschiedliche Interessen ve…