Domain Conditions in Social Choice Theory

A most comprehensive survey of recent research in an important area of social choice theory.

Wulf Gaertner (Author)

9780521791021, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 6 September 2001

166 pages, 6 b/w illus.
21.6 x 14 x 1.3 cm, 0.36 kg

'Domain Conditions in Social Choice Theory is an interesting and valuable book. It will be an essential addition to the library of social choice theory scholars and their graduate students. The most relevant results and theorems on the subject are included an proofs are easy to follow. This well-written monograph will be an excellent reference for researchers interested in domain restrictions in social choice theory.' Public Choice

Wulf Gaertner provides a comprehensive account of an important and complex issue within social choice theory: how to establish a social welfare function while restricting the spectrum of individual preferences in a sensible way. Gaertner's starting point is K. J. Arrow's famous 'Impossibility Theorem', which showed that no welfare function could exist if an unrestricted domain of preferences is to be satisfied together with some other appealing conditions. A number of leading economists have tried to provide avenues out of this 'impossibility' by restricting the variety of preferences: here, Gaertner provides a clear and detailed account, using standardized mathematical notation, of well over forty theorems associated with domain conditions. Domain Conditions in Social Choice Theory will be an essential addition to the library of social choice theory for scholars and their advanced graduate students.

Preface and acknowledgements
1. Introduction
2. Notation, definitions and two fundamental theorems
3. The existence of collective choice rules under exclusion conditions for finite sets of discrete alternatives
4. Arrovian social welfare functions, nonmanipulable voting procedures and stable group decision functions
5. Restrictions on the distribution of individuals' preferences
6. The existence of social choice rules in n-dimensional continuous space
7. Concluding remarks
8. References
Indexes.

Subject Areas: Political economy [KCP], Microeconomics [KCC], Economic theory & philosophy [KCA]