30 November 2011: Approval Voting and Arrow's Impossibiltiy Theorem

Philippe Mongin
HEC School of Management, Paris

Abstract:
Approval voting has attracted considerable interest among voting
theorists, but they have rarely investigated it in the Arrovian
framework of social welfare functions (SWF) and never connected it
with Arrow's impossibility theorem. This note explores these two
directions. Assuming that voters have dichotomous preferences, it
first characterizes approval voting in terms of its SWF properties and
then shows that these properties are incompatible if the social
preference is also taken to be dichotomous.

The positive result improves on some existing characterizations of
approval voting in the literature, as well as on Arrow's and May's
classic analyses of voting on two alternatives. The negative result
corresponds to a novel and perhaps surprising version of Arrow's
impossibility theorem.

Date: November 30, 2011
Time: 11:30 A.M.

Venue:
Conference Room
Indian Statistical Institute Delhi Centre,
7, S. J. S. Sansanwal Marg,
New Delhi-110016 (INDIA)

Location:

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