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Social welfare and electoral competition in democratic societies

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  • Melvin Hinich
  • Peter Ordeshook

Abstract

With the model of the electoral process described in Section 1, and a social welfare function defined by symmetrically weighting and summing individual utility functions, two factors, in addition to the density of preferences and the form of the weighting function, affect the performance of the electoral process as a mechanism for policy selection. These factors are: (1) the form of the individual loss functions, ∅, (i.e., convexity vs. quasi-convexity), and; (2) the causes of abstentions from voting. If ∅ is strictly convex, a social welfare optimum is achieved except when abstentions are caused by alientation — in which case there is no general solution. If, however, ∅ is quasi-convex, the conditions for achieving a social welfare optimum (presented in Table 2) are more restrictive, requiring at least that w (x) f (x) be unimodal. Finally, if f (x) is a symmetric multimodal density, if ∅ is quasi-convex, and if abstentions are caused by alientation, social welfare optima are achieved only in fortuituous circumstances. Copyright Center for Study of Public Choice Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University 1971

Suggested Citation

  • Melvin Hinich & Peter Ordeshook, 1971. "Social welfare and electoral competition in democratic societies," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 11(1), pages 73-87, September.
    • Handle: RePEc:kap:pubcho:v:11:y:1971:i:1:p:73-87
    DOI: 10.1007/BF01726213
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. Garvey, Gerald, 1966. "The Theory of Party Equilibrium," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 60(1), pages 29-38, March.
    2. Ordeshook, Peter C., 1971. "Pareto Optimality in Electoral Competition," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 65(4), pages 1141-1145, December.
    3. Davis, Otto A. & Hinich, Melvin J. & Ordeshook, Peter C., 1970. "An Expository Development of a Mathematical Model of the Electoral Process," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 64(2), pages 426-448, June.
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    Cited by:

    1. Donald Wittman, 1984. "Multi-candidate equilibria," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 43(3), pages 287-291, January.
    2. Bruno S. Frey & Reiner Eichenberger, 1989. "Should Social Scientists Care about Choice Anomalies?," Rationality and Society, , vol. 1(1), pages 101-122, July.
    3. Kenneth Koford, 1982. "Centralized vote-trading," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 39(2), pages 245-268, January.
    4. Peter Coughlin, 1982. "Pareto optimality of policy proposals with probabilistic voting," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 39(3), pages 427-433, January.
    5. Alberto Grillo, 2023. "Political alienation and voter mobilization in elections," Journal of Public Economic Theory, Association for Public Economic Theory, vol. 25(3), pages 515-531, June.

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