Social Science

   

From Vote to Veto: a Reformulation of Arrow General Possibility Theorem

Authors: Ricardo Alvira

Sixty-five years ago Kenneth Arrow set some ‘consistency’ rules that any Social Welfare Functions [SWF] should comply with. And his results were astonishing; his research led him to conclude that when the universe of possible choices [courses of action/states] to be valued comprised more than two alternatives, the preference relation could not fulfill two axioms and five consistency conditions for any decision to be considered both Rational and Democratic. Many scientists/authors have revised Arrow’s statements referring to the difficulties that they posed for democracy. Since the majority of social choices are made on a universe [choices space] larger than two options, it follows that collective decision making [Social Choice] can only be ensured via a SWF that either is rational or democratic yet not both simultaneously. But few authors have considered that Arrow also suggested that it could be possible that a SWF fulfilled his proposed ‘consistency’ conditions if some other conditions were added. In this text we proof that Arrow’s suggestion was correct; that adding some conditions and reformulating others, it becomes possible reformulating the General Possibility Theorem in a way that many [may be all] SWF fulfill Rationality and Democracy prerequisites.

Comments: 17 Pages.

Download: PDF

Submission history

[v1] 2015-06-09 04:50:59
[v2] 2015-06-29 09:27:06

Unique-IP document downloads: 15 times

Add your own feedback and questions here:
You are equally welcome to be positive or negative about any paper but please be polite. If you are being critical you must mention at least one specific error, otherwise your comment will be deleted as unhelpful.

comments powered by Disqus