ENGLISH

Foundations of Social Choice Theory (Studies in Rationality and Social Change)

By Jon Elster , Aanund Hylland

Book information

Year
1989
ISBN
0521389135, 9780521389136, 0521257352, 9780521257350
LCC
HB846.8 .F68 1986
Open Library ID
OL21502307M
Language
english
Format
PDF
Filesize
11 MB (11486799 bytes)
Pages
260\259
Topic
Education
Time added
2011-06-04 13:46:07

Description

The essays in this volume, first published in 1986, examine the philosophical foundations of social choice theory. This field, a modern and sophisticated outgrowth of welfare economics, is best known for a series of impossibility theorems, of which the first and most crucial was proved by Kenneth Arrow in 1950. That has often been taken to show the impossibility of democracy as a procedure for making collective decisions. However, this interpretation is challenged by several of the contributors here. Other central issues discussed in the volume include the possibility of making interpersonal comparisons of utility, the question of whether all preferences are equally to be valued, and the normative individualism underlying the theoretical tradition. Criticisms of social choice theory are advanced and suggestions for alternative approaches are developed.

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