Minimal manipulability: Unanimity and nondictatorship

This paper is concerned with the number of profiles at which a nondictatorial social choice function is manipulable. For three or more alternatives the lower bound is found for unanimous social choice functions. In the case of three alternatives the lower bound is found for surjective social choice functions. In both cases all social choice functions reaching the lower bound are characterized for more than two agents. In the case of two agents the characterized social choice functions form a subset of the set of all social choice functions reaching the minimum.     

Using goal programming to determine interest group disutility for public policy choices

Within this paper a framework is developed for incorporating into the process of social choice both interest group preferences for social goals and the efficient allocation of limited resources. The social welfare function is adopted as the foundation for the framework and the goal programming algorithm is used to approximate the utility of the interest groups for their optimal policy choice. A function is defined which measures the disutility experienced by a social unit when a policy other than its optimal choice is selected. A surrogate measure of this disutility involving imposed preference weight changes for social goals is determined and its implications for use in developing the social welfare function are examined.     

Nash implementing social choice rules with restricted ranges

We consider Nash implementation of social choice rules with restricted ranges, i.e., where some of the available alternatives are chosen at no preference profile. We show that the appropriate adaptation of Maskin monotonicity to this context depends on the range of the mechanisms: the wider is this range, the weaker is the monotonicity condition to be used. As a result, mechanisms employing outcome functions which allow for out-of-range alternatives at off-equilibrium messages can Nash implement social choice rules which fail to be Nash implementable by mechanisms whose ranges are restricted to the range of the social choice rule to be implemented. The Walrasian social choice correspondence is a particular instance of this. Moreover, social choice rules which are not Maskin monotonic can be “monotonized” by the addition of artificial out-of-range alternatives—a point we illustrate through Solomon’s Dilemma.     

NO CHOICE: REFORMING SOCIAL HOUSING IN ENGLAND

This paper considers the current and future prospects for social housing. It looks at the key issues of choice and affordability that dominate housing policy, how this links social housing to the dominant tenure of owner-occupation and how government has sought to control social housing allowing for a managed decline of the sector. The final part of the paper proposes some reforms which will introduce real choice into rented housing and empower low-income households. This, however, will necessitate the end of social housing as a distinct tenure.     

Hierarchies of power in non-binary social choice

In the context of fixed agenda social choice correspondences, and by imposing usual axioms, we prove that power is distributed among either a non-complete hierarchy of dictators or of individuals with veto power in the society, which allows us to explicitly describe the social choice set as an alternative maximization process.     

HIERARCHICAL CHOICE IN ECONOMICS

Abstract. The paper examines the relevance for economic issues of choice which is not characterized by unlimited substitutability. After showing that hierarchical choice is common in other social sciences like psychology, the paper proceeds with an examination of such choice and of its different categories. Subsequently the implications for hierarchical choice for specific economic issues are analysed. In particular, there is discussion and literature review of demand theory, Engel curves, the theory of the firm and social choice theory. Finally, some suggestions for the application to other economic problems are considered.     

The structure of strategy-proof random social choice functions over product domains and lexicographically separable preferences

We characterize the class of dominant-strategy incentive-compatible (or strategy-proof) random social choice functions in the standard multi-dimensional voting model where voter preferences over the various dimensions (or components) are lexicographically separable. We show that these social choice functions (which we call generalized random dictatorships) are induced by probability distributions on voter sequences of length equal to the number of components. They induce a fixed probability distribution on the product set of voter peaks. The marginal probability distribution over every component is a random dictatorship. Our results generalize the classic random dictatorship result in Gibbard (1977) and the decomposability results for strategy-proof deterministic social choice functions for multi-dimensional models with separable preferences obtained in LeBreton and Sen (1999).     

Implementable social choice rules: Characterization and correspondence theorems under strong nash equilibrium

The paper investigates the problem of implementation of a class of social choice rules. These rules, it is shown, are either not implementable or dictotorial. The concept of partial implementation is then introduced, and some necessary conditions for the requirement of partial implementability are obtained. These conditions help establish the general structure of partially implementable social choice rules.     

On the robustness of strategy proof mechanisms

Following the Gibbard-Satterthwaite impossibility theorem, the incentives literature has explored restrictions on the domains of unknown characteristics which enable the implementation of some social choice rules by dominant strategy incentive compatible mechanisms. This paper makes precise the intuitive idea that, even when restrictions on preferences take the extreme form of finite- dimensional parametrizations, implementable social choice rules display a lack of robustness and in a sense made explicit are rare.     

Circular domains

I introduce the notion of circular domains and prove that on any circular domain there is no strategy-proof and nondictatorial social choice function. Moreover, I show that on any proper subset of a minimal circular domain, there exists a group strategy-proof and essential social choice function. These results together detect the minimal size of the domains over which the incompatibility arises with respect to pairs of democratic-incentive requirements (nondictatorial, strategy-proof) and (essential, group strategy-proof).     

Strategyproof multiple assignment using quotas

The allocation of heterogeneous and indivisible objects is considered where there is no medium of exchange. We characterize the set of strategyproof, nonbossy, Pareto-optimal, and neutral social choice functions when preferences are monotonic and quantity-monotonic. The characterized sets of social choice functions are sequential; agents are assigned their favorite objects among the objects not given to others before them, subject to a quota. Received: 5 January 1999 / Accepted: 14 June 1999     

On the equivalence of the Arrow impossibility theorem and the Brouwer fixed point theorem when individual preferences are weak orders

We will show that in the case where there are two individuals and three alternatives (or under the assumption of the free-triple property), and individual preferences are weak orders (which may include indifference relations), the Arrow impossibility theorem [Arrow, K.J., 1963. Social Choice and Individual Values, second ed. Yale University Press] that there exists no binary social choice rule which satisfies the conditions of transitivity, Pareto principle, independence of irrelevant alternatives, and non-existence of dictator is equivalent to the Brouwer fixed point theorem on a 2-dimensional ball (circle). Our study is an application of ideas by Chichilnisky [Chichilnisky, G., 1979. On fixed points and social choice paradoxes. Economics Letters 3, 347–351] to a discrete social choice problem, and also it is in line with the work by Baryshnikov [Baryshnikov, Y., 1993. Unifying impossibility theorems: a topological approach. Advances in Applied Mathematics 14, 404–415].     

Implementing efficient, anonymous and neutral social choice functions

Implementing a social choice function is to endow the agents involved in a collective decision problem with a privately owned decision power, in such a way that by exercising (noncooperatively) this power the agents eventually select the very outcome recommended by the social choice function.In this paper, we show that the concept of dominance-solvable voting scheme allows the implementation of some of the most desirable social choice functions. Namely our main result is the following: If the number of agents n is a prime integer strictly greater than the number of outcomes p then there exists at least one efficient, anonymous and neutral social choice function, in short eanscf, that can be implemented by a dominance-solvable voting scheme. The result is proved constructively, i.e., by looking at a repeated version of voting by veto that is by itself an appealing voting scheme. The arithmetic condition (n should be prime and greater than p) is very natural (since it does not exist an eanscf unless every prime factor of n is greater than p).     

How different are social choice functions: a rough sets approach

The number of different social choice procedures currently in use is vast. So is the number of criteria used in the evaluation of the procedures. We discuss several voting procedures in the light of methodology based on rough sets introduced by Pawlak. This methodology is used in identifying the crucial characteristics of various choice methods and in defining a metric for measuring the quantitative differences of choice methods.     

企业社会责任:企业可持续发展的战略选择

在经济全球化的大潮中,经济、社会、环境问题之间存在着强烈的互动性。企业社会责任既是企业通向可持续发展的重要途径,也是构成企业可持续发展的重要内容,企业社会责任成为企业可持续发展的战略选择。     

Strategy-proofness on restricted separable domains

We study a problem in which a group of voters must decide which candidates are elected from a set of alternatives. The voters’ preferences on the combinations of elected candidates are represented by linear orderings. We propose a family of restrictions of the domain of separable preferences. These subdomains are generated from a partition that identifies the friends, enemies and unbiased candidates for each voter. We characterize the family of social choice functions that satisfy strategy-proofness and tops-onlyness properties on each of the subdomains. We find that these domain restrictions are not accompanied by an increase in the family of social choice functions satisfying the two properties.     

信用体系信用内生机制与我国社会信用体系构建

信用不仅属于道德范畴,而且属于经济范畴。信用可以内生于市场交易,是经济主体追求长期利益最大化的理性选择,也是市场经济得以正常运行和效率得以充分发挥的基础。我国当前市场经济不健全,信用作为人们的理性选择结果难以实现,从而导致严重的社会和经济问题。构建我国的社会信用体系,要重视信用内生机制,深化市场经济改革,建立现代市场经济秩序,将信用内化为人们理性选择的自然结果,这样才能最终建立稳定的社会信用体系。     

Breaking ties in collective decision-making

Decisions in Economics and Finance - Many classic social preference (multiwinner social choice) correspondences are resolute only when two alternatives and an odd number of individuals are...     

务实与创新并举，大力推进社会信息化建设

运用信息技术提升传统社会事业，开发利用信息资源为社会事业和社会发展服务，是贯彻落实科学发展观、全面建设小康社会、构建社会主义和谐社会和建设创新型国家的迫切需要，是我国实现社会事业健康发展的必然选择。     

The technological choice decision making process: An example from Nigeria—the Kainji hydro-electric technology: A multi-purpose development technolog

This paper examines the technological-cum-economic/social/political criteria under which technological decisions are made. An example—The Kainji Dam hydro-electric technology—from Nigeria (a buyer of technology) is selected as a case study. The study shows the importance of socio-economic criteria in the process of making any technological choice decision. Nonetheless a close interplay of some political factors may mitigate purely the socio-economic considerations in the technological choice decision making process. This is evident in the choice of the Kainji Dam technology in Nigeria.