Social Aggregations and Distributional Ethics

Ranking social states using individual rankings, strategic and non-strategic behaviors of individuals, ethical issues in distributional analysis.

Satya R. Chakravarty (Author), Manipushpak Mitra (Author), Suresh Mutuswami (Author)

9781108927635, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 11 May 2023

250 pages
22.9 x 15.1 x 1.6 cm, 0.37 kg

This book analyzes the following four distinct, although not dissimilar, areas of social choice theory and welfare economics: nonstrategic choice, Harsanyi's aggregation theorems, distributional ethics and strategic choice. While for aggregation of individual ranking of social states, whether the persons behave strategically or non-strategically, the decision making takes place under complete certainty; in the Harsanyi framework uncertainty has a significant role in the decision making process. Another ingenious characteristic of the book is the discussion of ethical approaches to evaluation of inequality arising from unequal distributions of achievements in the different dimensions of human well-being. Given its wide coverage, combined with newly added materials, end-chapter problems and bibliographical notes, the book will be helpful material for students and researchers interested in this frontline area research. Its lucid exposition, along with non-technical and graphical illustration of the concepts, use of numerical examples, makes the book a useful text.

Preface
1. Introduction
Bibliography
2. Individual and social orderings
2.1. Introduction
2.2. relations
2.3. Preference relations and choice sets
2.4. Social orderings, quasi-orderings and weak quasi-orderings
2.5. Exercises
2.6. Bibliographical notes
bibliography
3. May's theorem
3.1. Introduction
3.2. The framework
3.3. May's theorem
3.4. Robustness of the axioms
3.5. Exercises
3.6. Bibliographical notes
Bibliography
4. Arrow's theorem with individual preferences
4.1. Introduction
4.2. The framework
4.3. The Arrow Impossibility theorem
4.4. Two proofs of Arrow's theorem
4.5. Exercises
4.6. Bibliographical notes
Bibliography
5. Relaxing Arrow's axioms
5.1. Introduction
5.2. Relaxing Weak Pareto
5.3. Relaxing transitivity of (Social) binary relations
5.4. Domain restriction: single peaked preferences
5.5. Exercises
5.6. Bibliographical notes
Bibliography
6. Arrow's theorem with utilities
6.1. Introduction
6.2. The framework and assumptions
6.3. Measurability and comparability
6.4. Arrow's theorem
6.5. Positional dictatorships
6.6. Leximin
6.7. Utilitarianism
6.8. Exercises
6.9. Bibliographical notes
Bibliography
7. Harsanyi's Social Aggregation theorem
7.1. Introduction
7.2. The model
7.3. Appendix
7.4. Illustrative examples
7.5. Exercises
7.6. Bibliographical notes and discussions
Bibliography
8. Distributional ethics I
8.1. Introduction
8.2. Basics and preliminaries
8.3. Common features
8.4. The direct approach
8.5. The inclusive-measure of well-being approach
8.6. Direct descriptive inequality indices and reduced form welfare functions
8.7. Measuring inequality within the Harsanyi framework
8.8. Comparability between achievement and shortfall inequality: an expository analysis
8.9. Equality of opportunity: an illustrative discussion
8.10. Inequality and welfare with an ordinal dimension of well-being
8.11. Inequality as an ordinal notion
8.12. Fairness in network resource allocation: an analytical exposition
8.13. Exercises
8.14. Bibliographical notes
Bibliography
9. Distributional ethics II
9.1. Motivations
9.2. Basics and preliminaries
9.3. Common features
9.4. The direct approach
9.5. The inclusive-measure of well-being approach
9.6. Direct descriptive multidimensional inequality indices and reduced form welfare functions
9.7. Inequality under uncertainty: a brief discussion
9.8 Exercises
9.9 Bibliographical notes
Bibliography
10. Social choice functions
10.1. Introduction
10.2. The framework and the Gibbard-Satterthwaite theorem
10.3. Two proofs of the Gibbard-Satterthwaite theorem
10.4. Single-peaked preferences
10.5. Exercises
10.6. Bibliographical notes
Bibliography
11. Strategyproofness on quasi-linear domains
11.1. Introduction
11.2. The pure public goods problem
11.3. Allocation of a single indivisible object
11.4. Relaxing outcome efficiency: Affine maximizers
11.5. Exercises
11.6. Bibliographical notes
Bibliography
Index.

Subject Areas: Game theory [PBUD], Economic statistics [KCHS], Econometrics [KCH], Microeconomics [KCC], Economics [KC], Social research & statistics [JHBC]