• Table of Contents
    • Abstract
    • Keywords
    • Article
      • 1 Welfare economics and social choice
      • 2 Variations and extensions of Arrow's impossibility result
      • 3 Domain restrictions
      • 4 Manipulability and implementation
      • 5 Information: utility, compensations and fairness
      • 6 Social welfare functionals and interpersonal comparisons
      • 7 Liberty and rights
      • 8 Independence and neutrality
      • 9 Concluding remarks
    • See Also
    • Bibliography
    • How to cite this article

social choice

Amartya Sen
From The New Palgrave Dictionary of Economics, Second Edition, 2008
Edited by Steven N. Durlauf and Lawrence E. Blume
Alternate versions available: 1987 Edition
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Abstract

This article is a critical survey of the literature of social choice theory, first formalized by Kenneth Arrow in 1951. Social choice theory deals with the aggregation of some measure of individual welfare into a collective measure. It takes different forms according both to what is being aggregated (interests, judgements, and so on) and to the purpose of the aggregation. The methodology of social choice has greatly clarified a range of hitherto obscure problems.
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Keywords

impossibility theorem; aggregation; Arrow, K.; Arrow's theorem; Bentham, J.; Bergson, A.; Black, D.; Borda rule; Borda, J.-C.; Chernoff condition; compensation tests; Condorcet, Marquis de; envy; fairness; independence of irrelevant alternatives; interpersonal utility comparisons; liberty; majority rule; maximin; Mill, J. S.; Pareto principle; positional rules; primary goods; Rawls, J.; revealed preference; rights; Robbins, L.; Samuelson, P.; single-peaked preferences; social choice; social welfare function; transitivity; voting paradoxes; welfare economics
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Article

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How to cite this article

Sen, Amartya. "social choice." The New Palgrave Dictionary of Economics. Second Edition. Eds. Steven N. Durlauf and Lawrence E. Blume. Palgrave Macmillan, 2008. The New Palgrave Dictionary of Economics Online. Palgrave Macmillan. 19 May 2013 <http://www.dictionaryofeconomics.com/article?id=pde2008_S000164> doi:10.1057/9780230226203.1550

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