We propose a new class of multidimensional poverty indices. To aggregate and weight the different dimensions of poverty, we rely on the preferences of the concerned agents rather than on an arbitrary weighting scheme selected by the analyst. The Pareto principle is, therefore, satisfied among...

The year 2012 was the 30th anniversary of William H. Riker’s modern classic Liberalism against populism (1982) and is marked by the present special issue. In this introduction, we seek to identify some core elements and evaluate the current status of the Rikerian research program and its...

Preferences of a set of n individuals over a set of alternatives can be represented by a preference profile being an n-tuple of preference relations over these alternatives.A social choice correspondence assigns to every preference profile a subset of alternatives that can be viewed as the `most...

Theoretically, polarization is associated with a higher probability of social conflict. This paper, in a microeconomic model based on the theory of social networks, analyses how changes in the network’s structure affect the level of some basic parameters associated with the concept of...

There is an ongoing discussion about the relationship of power and preferences: Is power reflected in what the agents can do and what they want to do, or, alternatively, are preferences and power two separate dimensions of determining the outcome of decisionmaking? In the latter case...

90 Classical problems in economics are concerned with the solutions of several simultaneous nonlinear optimization problems, one for each consumer or producer, all facing constraints posed by the scarcity of resources. Often their interests conflict, and it is generally impossible to find a...

The theory of social choice introduced in [5,6] is robust; it is completely independent of the choice of topology on spaces of preference. This theory has been fruitful in linking diverse forms of resource allocation; it has been shown [17] that contractibility is necessary and sufficient for...

This paper revisits the aggregation theorem of Chichilnisky (1980), replacing the original smooth topology by the closed convergence topology and responding to several comments (N. Baigent (1984, 1985, 1987, 1989), N. Baigent and P. Huang (1990) and M. LeBreton and J. Uriarte (1900 a, b)....

In this paper we examine whether, and how, welfare economics should incorporate the insights from happiness and satisfaction studies. Our main point is that measuring well-being by reported satisfaction levels can come in conáict with individuals judgments about their own lives and that these...

Behavioral economics has shaken the view that individuals have well-defined, consistent and stable preferences. This raises a challenge for welfare economics, which takes as a key postulate that individual preferences should be respected. We agree with Bernheim (2009) and Bernheim and Rangel...