The possibility of Paretian anonymous decision-making with an infinite population

Sususmu Cato ()

Social Choice and Welfare, 2019, vol. 53, issue 4, No 3, 587-601

Abstract: Abstract This paper considers the trade-off between unanimity and anonymity in collective decision-making with an infinite population. This efficiency-equity trade-off is afundamental difficulty in making a normative judgment in a conflict betweengenerations. In particular, it is known that this trade-off is quite sensitive in the formulation of unanimity axioms. In this study, we consider the trade-off in a preference-aggregation framework instead of the standard utility-aggregationframework. We show that there exists a social welfare function that satisfies I-strong Pareto, independence of irrelevant alternatives, and finite anonymity. This contrasts with an impossibility result in the standard utility-aggregation framework, and this means that the trade-off is also sensitive for background frameworks of aggregations.

Keywords: Social choice; Intergenerational equity; Possibility theorem; Unanimity; Anonymity; Ultrafilter (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D63 D64 D71 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

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DOI: 10.1007/s00355-019-01199-1

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