Judgment aggregation and agenda manipulation

Franz Dietrich

Games and Economic Behavior, 2016, vol. 95, issue C, 113-136

Abstract: When individual judgments (‘yes’ or ‘no’) on some propositions are aggregated into collective judgments, outcomes may be sensitive to the choice of propositions under consideration (the agenda). Such agenda-sensitivity opens the door to manipulation by agenda setters. I define three types of agenda-insensitivity (‘basic’, ‘full’, and ‘focal’) and for each type axiomatically characterize the aggregation procedures satisfying it. Two axioms turn out to be central for agenda-insensitivity: the familiar independence axiom, requiring propositionwise aggregation, and the axiom of implicit consensus preservation, requiring the respect of any (possibly implicit) consensus. As the paper's second contribution, I prove a new impossibility theorem whereby these two axioms imply dictatorial aggregation for almost all agendas.

Keywords: Judgment aggregation; Multiple issues; Description-sensitivity; Agenda manipulation; Impossibility theorems; Characterization theorems (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D70 D71 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2016
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (8)

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Related works:
Working Paper: Judgment aggregation and agenda manipulation (2016)
Working Paper: Judgment aggregation and agenda manipulation (2016)
Working Paper: Judgment aggregation and agenda manipulation (2016)
Working Paper: Judgment aggregation and agenda manipulation (2013)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:gamebe:v:95:y:2016:i:c:p:113-136

DOI: 10.1016/j.geb.2016.01.001

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