IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/spr/sochwe/v53y2019i4d10.1007_s00355-019-01199-1.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The possibility of Paretian anonymous decision-making with an infinite population

Author

Listed:
  • Susumu Cato

    (University of Tokyo)

Abstract

This paper considers the trade-off between unanimity and anonymity in collective decision-making with an infinite population. This efficiency-equity trade-off is afundamental difficulty in making a normative judgment in a conflict betweengenerations. In particular, it is known that this trade-off is quite sensitive in the formulation of unanimity axioms. In this study, we consider the trade-off in a preference-aggregation framework instead of the standard utility-aggregationframework. We show that there exists a social welfare function that satisfies I-strong Pareto, independence of irrelevant alternatives, and finite anonymity. This contrasts with an impossibility result in the standard utility-aggregation framework, and this means that the trade-off is also sensitive for background frameworks of aggregations.

Suggested Citation

  • Susumu Cato, 2019. "The possibility of Paretian anonymous decision-making with an infinite population," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 53(4), pages 587-601, December.
    • Handle: RePEc:spr:sochwe:v:53:y:2019:i:4:d:10.1007_s00355-019-01199-1
    DOI: 10.1007/s00355-019-01199-1
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s00355-019-01199-1
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1007/s00355-019-01199-1?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Geir B. Asheim, 2010. "Intergenerational Equity," Annual Review of Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 2(1), pages 197-222, September.
    2. Shino Takayama & Akira Yokotani, 2017. "Social choice correspondences with infinitely many agents: serial dictatorship," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 48(3), pages 573-598, March.
    3. H. Reiju Mihara, 1997. "Anonymity and neutrality in Arrow's Theorem with restricted coalition algebras," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 14(4), pages 503-512.
    4. Juan Crespo & Carmelo Nuñez & Juan Rincón-Zapatero, 2009. "On the impossibility of representing infinite utility streams," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 40(1), pages 47-56, July.
    5. Uuganbaatar Ninjbat, 2015. "Impossibility theorems are modified and unified," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 45(4), pages 849-866, December.
    6. Kaushik Basu & Tapan Mitra, 2003. "Aggregating Infinite Utility Streams with InterGenerational Equity: The Impossibility of Being Paretian," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 71(5), pages 1557-1563, September.
    7. Van Liedekerke, Luc & Lauwers, Luc, 1997. "Sacrificing the Patrol: Utilitarianism, Future Generations and Infinity," Economics and Philosophy, Cambridge University Press, vol. 13(2), pages 159-174, October.
    8. Susumu Cato, 2016. "Rationality and Operators," SpringerBriefs in Economics, Springer, number 978-981-10-1896-1, June.
    9. Kirman, Alan P. & Sondermann, Dieter, 1972. "Arrow's theorem, many agents, and invisible dictators," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 5(2), pages 267-277, October.
    10. Muto, Nozomu & Sato, Shin, 2016. "Bounded response of aggregated preferences," Journal of Mathematical Economics, Elsevier, vol. 65(C), pages 1-15.
    11. Susumu Cato, 2013. "Quasi-decisiveness, quasi-ultrafilter, and social quasi-orderings," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 41(1), pages 169-202, June.
    12. Priscilla Man & Shino Takayama, 2013. "A unifying impossibility theorem," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 54(2), pages 249-271, October.
    13. Susumu Cato, 2013. "Social choice, the strong Pareto principle, and conditional decisiveness," Theory and Decision, Springer, vol. 75(4), pages 563-579, October.
    14. Marc Fleurbaey, 2009. "Beyond GDP: The Quest for a Measure of Social Welfare," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 47(4), pages 1029-1075, December.
    15. Toyotaka Sakai, 2010. "Intergenerational equity and an explicit construction of welfare criteria," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 35(3), pages 393-414, September.
    16. Lauwers, Luc, 2010. "Ordering infinite utility streams comes at the cost of a non-Ramsey set," Journal of Mathematical Economics, Elsevier, vol. 46(1), pages 32-37, January.
    17. Torres, Ricard, 2005. "Limiting Dictatorial rules," Journal of Mathematical Economics, Elsevier, vol. 41(7), pages 913-935, November.
    18. Jun Iritani & Tomoyuki Kamo & Ryo-ichi Nagahisa, 2013. "Vetoer and tie-making group theorems for indifference-transitive aggregation rules," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 40(1), pages 155-171, January.
    19. Noguchi, Mitsunori, 2011. "Generic impossibility of Arrow’s impossibility theorem," Journal of Mathematical Economics, Elsevier, vol. 47(4-5), pages 391-400.
    20. Armstrong, Thomas E., 1980. "Arrow's theorem with restricted coalition algebras," Journal of Mathematical Economics, Elsevier, vol. 7(1), pages 55-75, March.
    21. Luc Lauwers, 2016. "Intergenerational Equity, Efficiency, and Constructibility," Studies in Economic Theory, in: Graciela Chichilnisky & Armon Rezai (ed.), The Economics of the Global Environment, pages 191-206, Springer.
    22. Kohei Kamaga & Takashi Kojima, 2010. "On the leximin and utilitarian overtaking criteria with extended anonymity," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 35(3), pages 377-392, September.
    23. Toyotaka Sakai, 2006. "Equitable Intergenerational Preferences on Restricted Domains," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 27(1), pages 41-54, August.
    24. Fishburn, Peter C., 1970. "Arrow's impossibility theorem: Concise proof and infinite voters," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 2(1), pages 103-106, March.
    25. Andrei Gomberg & César Martinelli & Ricard Torres, 2005. "Anonymity in large societies," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 25(1), pages 187-205, October.
    26. Toyotaka Sakai, 2016. "Limit representations of intergenerational equity," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 47(2), pages 481-500, August.
    27. Cato, Susumu, 2017. "Unanimity, anonymity, and infinite population," Journal of Mathematical Economics, Elsevier, vol. 71(C), pages 28-35.
    28. Susumu Cato, 2012. "Social choice without the Pareto principle: a comprehensive analysis," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 39(4), pages 869-889, October.
    29. Hannu Salonen & Kari Saukkonen, 2005. "On continuity of Arrovian social welfare functions," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 25(1), pages 85-93, October.
    30. Lauwers, Luc & Van Liedekerke, Luc, 1995. "Ultraproducts and aggregation," Journal of Mathematical Economics, Elsevier, vol. 24(3), pages 217-237.
    31. Bengt Hansson, 1976. "The existence of group preference functions," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 28(1), pages 89-98, December.
    32. Charalambos D. Aliprantis & Kim C. Border, 2006. "Infinite Dimensional Analysis," Springer Books, Springer, edition 0, number 978-3-540-29587-7, June.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Pivato, Marcus & Fleurbaey, Marc, 2024. "Intergenerational equity and infinite-population ethics: A survey," Journal of Mathematical Economics, Elsevier, vol. 113(C).
    2. Susumu Cato, 2022. "Stable preference aggregation with infinite population," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 59(2), pages 287-304, August.
    3. Cato, Susumu, 2023. "When is weak Pareto equivalent to strong Pareto?," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 222(C).
    4. Adrian Miroiu, 2020. "Coalitions of concerned voters: a characterization of the majority rule," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 40(4), pages 2717-2722.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Cato, Susumu, 2017. "Unanimity, anonymity, and infinite population," Journal of Mathematical Economics, Elsevier, vol. 71(C), pages 28-35.
    2. Pivato, Marcus & Fleurbaey, Marc, 2024. "Intergenerational equity and infinite-population ethics: A survey," Journal of Mathematical Economics, Elsevier, vol. 113(C).
    3. Susumu Cato, 2020. "Quasi-stationary social welfare functions," Theory and Decision, Springer, vol. 89(1), pages 85-106, July.
    4. Bossert, Walter & Cato, Susumu, 2021. "Superset-robust collective choice rules," Mathematical Social Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 109(C), pages 126-136.
    5. Bossert, Walter & Cato, Susumu, 2020. "Acyclicity, anonymity, and prefilters," Journal of Mathematical Economics, Elsevier, vol. 87(C), pages 134-141.
    6. Susumu Cato, 2018. "Collective rationality and decisiveness coherence," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 50(2), pages 305-328, February.
    7. Susumu Cato, 2018. "Infinite Population and Positive Responsiveness: A Note," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 38(1), pages 196-200.
    8. Cato, Susumu, 2021. "Preference aggregation and atoms in measures," Journal of Mathematical Economics, Elsevier, vol. 94(C).
    9. Susumu Cato, 2022. "Stable preference aggregation with infinite population," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 59(2), pages 287-304, August.
    10. Uuganbaatar Ninjbat, 2018. "Impossibility theorems with countably many individuals," SERIEs: Journal of the Spanish Economic Association, Springer;Spanish Economic Association, vol. 9(3), pages 333-350, August.
    11. Asheim, Geir B. & Kamaga, Kohei & Zuber, Stéphane, 2022. "Maximal sensitivity under Strong Anonymity," Journal of Mathematical Economics, Elsevier, vol. 103(C).
    12. Geir Asheim & Stéphane Zuber, 2013. "A complete and strongly anonymous leximin relation on infinite streams," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 41(4), pages 819-834, October.
    13. Dubey, Ram Sewak & Laguzzi, Giorgio, 2021. "Equitable preference relations on infinite utility streams," Journal of Mathematical Economics, Elsevier, vol. 97(C).
    14. Cato, Susumu, 2015. "Weak independent decisiveness and the existence of a unique vetoer," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 131(C), pages 59-61.
    15. Shino Takayama & Akira Yokotani, 2017. "Social choice correspondences with infinitely many agents: serial dictatorship," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 48(3), pages 573-598, March.
    16. Susumu Cato, 2013. "Social choice, the strong Pareto principle, and conditional decisiveness," Theory and Decision, Springer, vol. 75(4), pages 563-579, October.
    17. Adachi, Tsuyoshi & Cato, Susumu & Kamaga, Kohei, 2014. "Extended anonymity and Paretian relations on infinite utility streams," Mathematical Social Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 72(C), pages 24-32.
    18. Herzberg, Frederik S., 2008. "Judgement aggregation functions and ultraproducts," MPRA Paper 10546, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised 10 Sep 2008.
    19. Kari Saukkonen, 2007. "Continuity of social choice functions with restricted coalition algebras," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 28(4), pages 637-647, June.
    20. Ricard Torres, 2002. "Smallness of Invisible Dictators," Working Papers 0213, Centro de Investigacion Economica, ITAM, revised Sep 2003.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Social choice; Intergenerational equity; Possibility theorem; Unanimity; Anonymity; Ultrafilter;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D63 - Microeconomics - - Welfare Economics - - - Equity, Justice, Inequality, and Other Normative Criteria and Measurement
    • D64 - Microeconomics - - Welfare Economics - - - Altruism; Philanthropy; Intergenerational Transfers
    • D71 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - Social Choice; Clubs; Committees; Associations

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:spr:sochwe:v:53:y:2019:i:4:d:10.1007_s00355-019-01199-1. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.springer.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.