The design of socially optimal decisions in a consensus scenario

Jacinto González-Pachón and Carlos Romero

Omega, 2011, vol. 39, issue 2, 179-185

Abstract: Several situations of conflict between basic social principles can crop up during a consensus searching process. The majority principle and respect for minority groups is a possible example of a conflictive situation between two social principles. In this paper, we outline a specific consensus searching scenario, where individual preferences are expressed by "pairwise" comparison matrices. The set of compromise consensuses between the majority and minority principles is determined using a procedure based upon an adaptation of Yu's p-metric distances. Finally, we use three different theoretical approaches - utility theory, p-metric distance functions and bargaining theory - to obtain the social optimum from the set of compromise consensuses. The links and differences among the three approaches are analysed. Finally, the working of the proposed theoretical framework is illustrated with the help of a forestry case study.

Keywords: Consensus; Majority; principle; Minority; principle; Goal; programming; Bargaining; "Pairwise"; comparisons (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2011
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (11)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0305-0483(10)00072-1
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:jomega:v:39:y:2011:i:2:p:179-185

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/supportfaq.cws_home/regional
https://shop.elsevie ... _01_ooc_1&version=01

Access Statistics for this article

Omega is currently edited by B. Lev

More articles in Omega from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().