This introductory text explores the theory of social choice. Written as a primer suitable for advanced undergraduates and graduates, this text will act as an important starting point for students grappling with the complexities of social choice theory. Rigorous yet accessible, this primer avoids the use of technical language and provides an up-to-date discussion of this rapidly developing field. This is the first in a series of texts published in association with the LSE.

This is a textbook introducing selected topics in formal social choice theory. Social choice theory studies group choices that are based on information about preferences of members of the group (voting rules being one important special case). This involves economics, which provides the method of modelling individual decision making; political philosophy, which provides criteria about the allocation of decision-influencing power; and game theory, which provides a framework for thinking about the strategies individuals employ in trying to influence the group choice. The goal of this book is to take basic ideas like impossibility theorems, rights exercising and strategy proofness and give the student just enough technical background to be able to understand these ideas in a logically rigorous way. This is done through a set of 250 exercises that constitute the heart of the book and which differentiate this book from all other texts in social choice theory.

This book covers the main topics of welfare economics — general equilibrium models of exchange and production, Pareto optimality, un certainty, externalities and public goods — and some of the major topics of social choice theory — compensation criteria, fairness, voting. Arrow's Theorem, and the theory of implementation. The underlying question is this: "Is a particular economic or voting mechanism good or bad for society?" Welfare economics is mainly about whether the market mechanism is good or bad; social choice is largely about whether voting mechanisms, or other more abstract mechanisms, can improve upon the results of the market. This second edition updates the material of the first, written by Allan Feldman. It incorporates new sections to existing first-edition chapters, and it includes several new ones. Chapters 4, 6, 11, 15 and 16 are new, added in this edition. The first edition of the book grew out of an undergraduate welfare economics course at Brown University. The book is intended for the undergraduate student who has some prior familiarity with microeconomics. However, the book is also useful for graduate students and professionals, economists and non-economists, who want an overview of welfare and social choice results unburdened by detail and mathematical complexity. Welfare economics and social choice both probably suffer from ex cessively technical treatments in professional journals and monographs.

One fundamental premise of democratic theory is that social policy, group choice, or collective action should be based on the preferences of the individuals in the society, group, or collective. Using the tools of formal mathematical analysis, Peter C. Fishburn explores and defines the conditions for social choice and methods for synthesizing individuals' preferences. This study is unique in its emphasis on social choice functions, the general position that individual indifference may not be transitive, and the use of certain mathematics such as linear algebra. The text is divided into three main parts: social choice between two alternatives, which examines a variety of majority-like functions; simple majority social choice, which focuses on social choice among many alternatives when two-element feasible subset choices are based on simple majority; and a general study of aspects and types of social choice functions for many alternatives. Originally published in 1973. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

Advanced Textbooks in Economics, Volume 18: The Strategy of Social Choice focuses on the social, economics, and political implications of social choice. The publication first surveys introduction, social choice functions and correspondences, and monotonicity and the arrow theorem. Discussions focus on efficiency, anonymity and neutrality, classifying voting methods, normative versus positive approach to voting, voting and the non-strategic theory of social choice, and development of the strategic theory of voting. The text then ponders on strategy-proofness and monotonicity and sophisticated voting. Topics include sophisticated implementation, voting by binary choices, strategy-proof social choice functions and game forms, Gibbard-Satterthwaite theorem, and restricted domains. The manuscript examines cooperative voting and voting by veto, including the minority principle, proportional veto core, voting by integer veto, effectivity functions, maximal and stable effectivity functions, and implementation by Nash equilibrium. The text is a dependable source of data for researchers interested in the process of social choice.

The discoveries of social choice theory have undermined the simple and unrealistic nineteenth-century notions of democracy, especially the expectation that electoral institutions smoothly translate popular will directly into public policy. One response to these discoveries is to reject democracy out of hand. Another, which is the program of this book, is to save democracy by formulating more realistic expectations. Hence, this book first summarizes social choice theory in order to explain the full force of its critique. Then it explains, in terms of social choice theory, how politics and public issues change and develop. Finally, it reconciles democratic ideals with this new understanding of politics.

These essays by contributors from disciplines ranging from economics to psychology present the most significant advances in strategic choice theory. In three parts the book addresses many-player, few-player and one-player situations.