Duncan Black and group decision-making: from early priority dispute to late recognition

Herrade Igersheim ()
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Herrade Igersheim: BETA - Bureau d'Économie Théorique et Appliquée - AgroParisTech - UNISTRA - Université de Strasbourg - Université de Haute-Alsace (UHA) - Université de Haute-Alsace (UHA) Mulhouse - Colmar - UL - Université de Lorraine - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique - INRAE - Institut National de Recherche pour l’Agriculture, l’Alimentation et l’Environnement

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Abstract: As Amadae observed in her 2003 Rationalizing Capitalist Democracy, "the priority dispute between Black and Arrow over the mathematical analysis of election problems was bitter and unresolved." Arrow's 1951 Social Choice and Individual Values would subsequently overshadow Black's contributions. Based on a study of Black's, Tullock's, and Coase's papers (housed at the University of Glasgow, Hoover Archives -Stanford University, and the University of Chicago respectively), the present article aims to provide a historical reconstruction of the dispute between the two authors and to show its implications for Black's scientific and personal life. The article also brings to light the strong assistance that Black received from American researchers (Coase, Tullock, Riker) from the 1960s onwards, before finally being recognized as the "founding father" of public choice.

Keywords: Gordon Tullock; Duncan Black; Kenneth arrow; Public choice (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025-07-23
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-his, nep-hpe and nep-inv
Note: View the original document on HAL open archive server: https://hal.science/hal-05230470v1
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Published in Public Choice, 2025, ⟨10.1007/s11127-025-01315-z⟩

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:hal:journl:hal-05230470

DOI: 10.1007/s11127-025-01315-z

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