Arbeitspapier

Utilitarian Collective Choice and Voting

In his seminal Social Choice and Individual Values, Kenneth Arrow stated that his theory applies to voting. Many voting theorists have been convinced that, on account of Arrow’s theorem, all voting methods must be seriously flawed. Arrow’s theory is strictly ordinal, the cardinal aggregation of preferences being explicitly rejected. In this paper I point out that all voting methods are cardinal and therefore outside the reach of Arrow’s result. Parallel to Arrow’s ordinal approach, there evolved a consistent cardinal theory of collective choice. This theory, most prominently associated with the work of Harsanyi, continued the older utilitarian tradition in a more formal style. The purpose of this paper is to show that various derivations of utilitarian SWFs can also be used to derive utilitarian voting (UV). By this I mean a voting rule that allows the voter to score each alternative in accordance with a given scale. UV-k indicates a scale with k distinct values. The general theory leaves k to be determined on pragmatic grounds. A (1,0) scale gives approval voting. I prefer the scale (1,0,-1) and refer to the resulting voting rule as evaluative voting. A conclusion of the paper is that the defects of conventional voting methods result not from Arrow’s theorem, but rather from restrictions imposed on voters’ expression of their preferences. The analysis is extended to strategic voting, utilizing a novel set of assumptions regarding voter behavior.

Sprache
Englisch

Erschienen in
Series: Munich Discussion Paper ; No. 2004-25

Klassifikation
Wirtschaft
Social Choice; Clubs; Committees; Associations
Political Processes: Rent-seeking, Lobbying, Elections, Legislatures, and Voting Behavior
Thema
approval voting
cardinal collective choice
evaluative voting
strategic voting
voting paradoxes

Ereignis
Geistige Schöpfung
(wer)
Hillinger, Claude
Ereignis
Veröffentlichung
(wer)
Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München, Volkswirtschaftliche Fakultät
(wo)
München
(wann)
2004

DOI
doi:10.5282/ubm/epub.473
Handle
URN
urn:nbn:de:bvb:19-epub-473-8
Letzte Aktualisierung
10.03.2025, 11:44 MEZ

Datenpartner

Dieses Objekt wird bereitgestellt von:
ZBW - Deutsche Zentralbibliothek für Wirtschaftswissenschaften - Leibniz-Informationszentrum Wirtschaft. Bei Fragen zum Objekt wenden Sie sich bitte an den Datenpartner.

Objekttyp

  • Arbeitspapier

Beteiligte

  • Hillinger, Claude
  • Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München, Volkswirtschaftliche Fakultät

Entstanden

  • 2004

Ähnliche Objekte (12)