Interpreting the Will of the People - A Positive Analysis of Ordinal Preference Aggregation

Sandro Ambuehl and B. Douglas Bernheim
Authors registered in the RePEc Author Service: Sandro Ambühl

No 9317, CESifo Working Paper Series from CESifo

Abstract: We investigate how individuals think groups should aggregate members’ ordinal preferences -that is, how they interpret “the will of the people.” In an experiment, we elicit revealed attitudes toward ordinal preference aggregation and classify subjects according to the rules they apparently deploy. Majoritarianism is rare. Instead, people employ rules that place greater weight on compromise options. The classification’s fit is excellent, and clustering analysis reveals that it does not omit important rules. We ask whether rules are stable across domains, whether people impute cardinal utility from ordinal ranks, and whether attitudes toward aggregation differ across countries with divergent traditions.

Keywords: preference aggregation; experiment; social welfare analysis (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C91 D71 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cbe, nep-exp and nep-upt
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

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Working Paper: Interpreting the Will of the People: A Positive Analysis of Ordinal Preference Aggregation (2021)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ces:ceswps:_9317

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