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Multi-Profile Intergenerational Social Choice

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  • BOSSERT, Walter
  • SUZUMURA, Kotaro

Abstract

Ferejohn and Page transplanted a stationarity axiom from Koopmans’ theory of impatience into Arrow’s social choice theory with an infinite horizon and showed that the Arrow axioms and stationarity lead to a dictatorship by the first generation. We prove that the negative implications of their stationarity axiom are more far-reaching: there is no Arrow social welfare function satisfying their stationarity axiom. We propose a more suitable stationarity axiom, and show that an Arrow social welfare function satisfies this modified version if and only if it is a lexicographic dictatorship where the generations are taken into consideration in chronological order.

Suggested Citation

  • BOSSERT, Walter & SUZUMURA, Kotaro, 2008. "Multi-Profile Intergenerational Social Choice," Cahiers de recherche 08-2008, Centre interuniversitaire de recherche en économie quantitative, CIREQ.
    • Handle: RePEc:mtl:montec:08-2008
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. 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.
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    4. Chiaki Hara & Tomoichi Shinotsuka & Kotaro Suzumura & Yongsheng Xu, 2008. "Continuity and egalitarianism in the evaluation of infinite utility streams," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 31(2), pages 179-191, August.
    5. Campbell, Donald E., 1990. "Intergenerational social choice without the Pareto principle," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 50(2), pages 414-423, April.
    6. Geir B. Asheim & Tapan Mitra & Bertil Tungodden, 2007. "A New Equity Condition for Infinite Utility Streams and the Possibility of being Paretian," International Economic Association Series, in: John Roemer & Kotaro Suzumura (ed.), Intergenerational Equity and Sustainability, chapter 4, pages 55-68, Palgrave Macmillan.
    7. Sen, Amartya K, 1979. "Personal Utilities and Public Judgements: Or What's Wrong with Welfare Economics?," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 89(355), pages 537-558, September.
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    11. Basu, Kaushik & Mitra, Tapan, 2007. "Utilitarianism for infinite utility streams: A new welfare criterion and its axiomatic characterization," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 133(1), pages 350-373, March.
    12. Tjalling C. Koopmans, 1959. "Stationary Ordinal Utility and Impatience," Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers 81, Cowles Foundation for Research in Economics, Yale University.
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    16. Kotaro Suzumura, 1999. "Welfare Economics Beyond Welfarist-Consequentialism," Discussion Paper Series a382, Institute of Economic Research, Hitotsubashi University.
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    Cited by:

    1. 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.
    2. Susumu Cato, 2013. "Social choice, the strong Pareto principle, and conditional decisiveness," Theory and Decision, Springer, vol. 75(4), pages 563-579, October.
    3. Chichilnisky, Graciela & Hammond, Peter J. & Stern, Nicholas, 2018. "Should We Discount the Welfare of Future Generations? Ramsey and Suppes versus Koopmans and Arrow," CAGE Online Working Paper Series 386, Competitive Advantage in the Global Economy (CAGE).
    4. BOSSERT, Walter & SUZUMURA, Kotaro, 2009. "Decisive coalitions and coherence properties," Cahiers de recherche 2009-04, Universite de Montreal, Departement de sciences economiques.
    5. 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.
    6. BOSSERT, Walter & SUZUMURA, Kotaro, 2012. "Multi-Profile Intertemporal Social Choice," Cahiers de recherche 2012-08, Universite de Montreal, Departement de sciences economiques.
    7. Susumu Cato, 2020. "Quasi-stationary social welfare functions," Theory and Decision, Springer, vol. 89(1), pages 85-106, July.
    8. Cato, Susumu, 2021. "Preference aggregation and atoms in measures," Journal of Mathematical Economics, Elsevier, vol. 94(C).

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Multi-Profile Social Choice; Infinite-Horizon Intergenerational Choice; Lexicographic Dictatorship;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D71 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - Social Choice; Clubs; Committees; Associations

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