May’s theorem in one dimension

John Duggan

Journal of Theoretical Politics, 2017, vol. 29, issue 1, 3-21

Abstract: This paper provides three versions of May’s theorem on majority rule, adapted to the one-dimensional model common in formal political modeling applications. The key contribution is that single peakedness of voter preferences allows us to drop May’s restrictive positive responsiveness axiom. The simplest statement of the result holds when voter preferences are single peaked and linear (no indifferences), in which case a voting rule satisfies anonymity, neutrality, Pareto, and transitivity of weak social preference if and only if the number of individuals is odd and the rule is majority rule.

Keywords: Majority rule; May’s theorem; single peaked; transitivity (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2017
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:sae:jothpo:v:29:y:2017:i:1:p:3-21

DOI: 10.1177/0951629815603694

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