Collective Preference and Choice

A study of the classical aggregation problems that arise in social choice theory, voting theory, and group decision-making under uncertainty.

Shmuel Nitzan (Author)

9780521897259, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 10 December 2009

274 pages, 7 b/w illus. 1 table
23.4 x 15.4 x 1.7 cm, 0.57 kg

'Shmuel Nitzan is well-known to all scholars and students of social choice theory for his important articles published in leading outlets of the profession. His new book incorporates and expands upon those contributions in a very accessible manner. It contains much material not found in other textbooks in the field. Professor Nitzan's long experience as a teacher is pleasantly visible from the very beginning of the text. Each chapter is succinctly and competently summarized. A very nice instructional touch is added to the book by solved exercises at the end of each chapter. This makes the book most useful not only in the classroom, but also in independent study.' Hannu Nurmi, University of Turku

Collective decision-making is a familiar feature of our social, political, and economic lives. It ranges from the relatively trivial (e.g. the choice of the next family car) to the globally significant (e.g. whether or not a country should go to war). Yet, whether trivial or globally significant, such decisions involve a number of challenging problems. These problems arise in the standard social choice setting, where individuals differ in their preferences. They also arise in the standard decision-making setting, where individuals share the same preferences, but differ in their decisional capabilities. The distinctive feature of Collective Preference and Choice is that it looks at classical aggregation problems that arise in three closely related areas: social choice theory, voting theory, and group decision-making under uncertainty. Using a series of exercises and examples, the book explains these problems with reference to a number of important contributions to the study of collective decision-making.

List of figures
List of tables
Preface
Acknowledgments
Part I. Introduction: 1. The reason for the problems
2. Brief overview of the problems
3. The relationship between preferences and choice
Part II. Different Preferences: 4. Do social preferences exist? Arrow's and Sen's impossibility theorems
5. The desirable collective decision rule: axiomatization
6. Rule selection based on the compromise with the unanimity criterion
7. Paradoxes of voting
8. Majority tyranny and expression of preference intensity
9. The problem of inefficient provision of public goods
10. Do individuals reveal their true preferences?
Part III. Identical Preferences – Different Decisional Skills: 11. Which rule is better: the expert rule or the simple majority rule? Decisional errors in dichotomous choice and Condorcet's jury theorem
12. The optimal decision rule under uncertain dichotomous choice
References
Index.

Subject Areas: Economics [KC], Comparative politics [JPB]