Complex Collective Decisions and the Probability of Collective Inconsistencies

Christian List

No 2001-W23, Economics Papers from Economics Group, Nuffield College, University of Oxford

Abstract: Many groups are required to make collective decisions over multiple interconnected propositions. The "doctrinal paradox" or "discursive dilemma" shows that propostionwise majority voting can lead to inconsistent collective outcomes, even when the judgments of individual group members are consistent. How likely is the occurence of this paradox? This paper develops a simple model for determining the probability of the paradox's occurrence, given various assumptions about the probability of different individual judgments. Several convergence results will be proved, identifying conditions under which the probability of the paradox's occurrence converges to certainty as the number of individuals increases, and conditions under which that probability vanishes. The present model will also be used for assessing the "truth-tracking" performance of two escape-routes from the paradox, the premise- and conclusion-based procedures. Finally, the results on the probability of the doctrinal paradox will be compared with existing results on the probability of Condorcet's paradox of cyclical preferences. It will be suggested that the doctrinal paradox is more likely to occur than Condorcet's paradox.

JEL-codes: D71 D72 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 32 pages
Date: 2001-11-13
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cdm and nep-hpe
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.nuff.ox.ac.uk/Economics/papers/2001/w23/Prob-Doctrinal.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nuf:econwp:0123

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Economics Papers from Economics Group, Nuffield College, University of Oxford Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Maxine Collett ().