Multi-Profile Intergenerational Social Choice

Walter Bossert () and Suzumura Kotaro

No 380, PIE/CIS Discussion Paper from Center for Intergenerational Studies, Institute of Economic Research, Hitotsubashi University

Abstract: Ferejohn and Page transplanted a stationarity axiom from Koopmans' theory of impatience into Arrow's social choice theory with an infinite horizon and showed that the Arrow axioms and stationarity lead to a dictatorship by the first generation. We prove that the negative implications of their stationarity axiom are more far-reaching: there is no Arrow social welfare function satisfying their stationarity axiom. We propose a more suitable stationarity axiom, and show that an Arrow social welfare function satisfies this modified version if and only if it is a lexicographic dictatorship where the generations are taken into consideration in chronological order.

Keywords: Multi-Profile Social Choice; Infinite-Horizon Intergenerational Choice; Lexicographic Dictatorships (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D71 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2008-06
Note: This version: June 5, 2008

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Related works:
Working Paper: Multi-Profile Intergenerational Social Choice (2009)
Working Paper: Multi-Profile Intergenerational Social Choice (2008)
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Persistent link: http://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:hit:piecis:380

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