Extensive measurement in social choice

Jacob M. Nebel ()
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Jacob M. Nebel: Department of Philosophy, Princeton University

Theoretical Economics, 2024, vol. 19, issue 4

Abstract: Extensive measurement is the standard measurement-theoretic approach for constructing a ratio scale. It involves the comparison of objects that can be concatenated in an additively representable way. This paper studies the implications of extensively measurable welfare for social choice theory. We do this in two frameworks: an Arrovian framework with a fixed population and no interpersonal comparisons, and a generalized framework with variable populations and full interpersonal comparability. In each framework we use extensive measurement to introduce novel domain restrictions, independence conditions, and constraints on social evaluation. We prove a welfarism theorem for these domains and characterize the social welfare functions that satisfy the axioms of extensive measurement at both the individual and social levels. The main results are simple axiomatizations of strong dictatorship in the Arrovian framework and classical utilitarianism in the generalized framework.

Keywords: Social welfare functions; measurement theory; classical utilitarianism; variable-population ethics; Arrow's impossibility theorem (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D63 D71 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2024-11-14
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