Arrovian Aggregation in Economic Environments: How Much Should We Know About Indifference Surfaces?

Marc Fleurbaey, Kotaro Suzumura, 興太郎 鈴村, コウタロウ スズムラ, Koichi Tadenuma and 宏一 蓼沼

No 121, Discussion Paper from Center for Intergenerational Studies, Institute of Economic Research, Hitotsubashi University

Abstract: Arrow's celebrated theorem of social choice shows that the aggregation of individual preferences into a social ordering cannot make the ranking of any pair of alternatives depend only on individual preferences over that pair, unless the fundamental weak Pareto and nondictatorship principles are violated. In the standard model of division of commodities, we investigate how much information about indifference hypersurfaces is needed to construct social ordering functions satisfying the weak Pareto principle and anonymity. We show that local information such as marginal rates of substitution or the shapes "within the Edgeworth box" is not enough, and knowledge of substantially non-local information is necessary.

Keywords: social choice; preference aggregation; information; independence of irrelevant alternatives; indifference curves (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D63 D71 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 31 pages
Date: 2002-11
Note: November 2002 (First version: July 2001)
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

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https://hermes-ir.lib.hit-u.ac.jp/hermes/ir/re/14419/pie_dp121.pdf

Related works:
Journal Article: Arrovian aggregation in economic environments: how much should we know about indifference surfaces? (2005)
Working Paper: Arrovian aggregation in economic environments: How much should we know about indifference surfaces? (2005)
Working Paper: Arrovian Aggregation in Economic Environments: How Much Should We Know About Indifference Surfaces? (2002)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:hit:piedp1:121

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