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Borda’s Rule and Arrow’s Independence Condition

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  • Eric Maskin

Abstract

We argue that Arrow’s independence of irrelevant alternatives (IIA) condition is unjustifiably stringent because it rules out making a social welfare function sensitive to individuals’ preference intensities. Accordingly, we propose a modified version of IIA, MIIA, that is a necessary and sufficient relaxation of IIA for taking account of intensities. Rather than obtaining an impossibility result, we show that MIIA together with several other axioms (satisfied by virtually all voting rules and social welfare functions used in practice and studied in theory) uniquely characterizes the Borda count (sometimes called rank-order voting) as a social welfare function.

Suggested Citation

  • Eric Maskin, 2025. "Borda’s Rule and Arrow’s Independence Condition," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 133(2), pages 385-420.
    • Handle: RePEc:ucp:jpolec:doi:10.1086/732892
    DOI: 10.1086/732892
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