Choice, Preferences, and Procedures

Choice, Preferences, and Procedures
Author: Kotaro Suzumura
Publisher: Harvard University Press
Total Pages: 806
Release: 2016-06-06
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 0674727444

Kotaro Suzumura is one of the world’s foremost thinkers in social choice theory and welfare economics. Bringing together essays that have become classics in the field, Choice, Preferences, and Procedures examines foundational issues of normative economics and collective decision making. Social choice theory seeks to critically assess and rationally design economic mechanisms for improving human life. An important part of Suzumura’s contribution over the past forty years has entailed fusion of abstract microeconomic ideas with an understanding of real-world economies in a coherent analysis. This volume of selected essays reveals the evolution of Suzumura’s thinking over his career. Groundbreaking papers explore the nature of individual and social choice and the idea of assigning value to freedom of choice, different forms of rationality, and concepts of individual rights, equity, and fairness. Suzumura elucidates his innovative approach for recognizing interpersonal comparisons in the vein of Adam Smith’s notion of sympathy and expounds the effect of paying due attention to nonconsequential features, such as the opportunity to choose and the procedure for decision making, along with the standard consequential features. Analyzing the role of economic competition, Suzumura points out how restricting competition may, in some circumstances, improve social welfare. This is not to recommend government regulation rather than market competition but to emphasize the importance of procedural features in a competitive context. He concludes with illuminating essays on the history of economic thought, focusing on the ideas of Vilfredo Pareto, Arthur Pigou, John Hicks, and Paul Samuelson.

Rational Choice, Collective Decisions, and Social Welfare

Rational Choice, Collective Decisions, and Social Welfare
Author: Kotaro Suzumura
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 298
Release: 1983
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 9780521122559

An examination of the phenomenon of social cooperation failure, even amongst a group of rational individuals.

Rational Choice Theory and Organizational Theory

Rational Choice Theory and Organizational Theory
Author: Mary Zey
Publisher: SAGE
Total Pages: 156
Release: 1998
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 9780803951365

Rational Choice Theory and Organizational Theory is written in response to the neo-classical economic rational choice theories and organizational economic theories which have emerged in the past decade and gained center stage in current organizational analysis.

The Arrow Impossibility Theorem

The Arrow Impossibility Theorem
Author: Eric Maskin
Publisher: Columbia University Press
Total Pages: 164
Release: 2014-07-08
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 0231153287

Kenneth Arrow's pathbreaking Òimpossibility theoremÓ was a watershed in the history of welfare economics, voting theory, and collective choice, demonstrating that there is no voting rule that satisfies the four desirable axioms of decisiveness, consensus, nondictatorship, and independence. In this book, Amartya Sen and Eric Maskin explore the implications of ArrowÕs theorem. Sen considers its ongoing utility, exploring the theoremÕs value and limitations in relation to recent research on social reasoning, while Maskin discusses how to design a voting rule that gets us closer to the idealÑgiven that achieving the ideal is impossible. The volume also contains a contextual introduction by social choice scholar Prasanta K. Pattanaik and commentaries from Joseph E. Stiglitz and Kenneth Arrow himself, as well as essays by Sen and Maskin outlining the mathematical proof and framework behind their assertions.

Theories of Choice

Theories of Choice
Author: Stefan Grundmann
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
Total Pages: 353
Release: 2021
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 0198863179

This book provides an in-depth discussion of the promises and perils of specific types of theories of choice. It shows how the selection of a specific theory of choice can make a difference for concrete legal questions, in particular in the regulation of the digital economy or in choosing between market, firm, or network.

Social Choice and Individual Values

Social Choice and Individual Values
Author: Kenneth Joseph Arrow
Publisher: Yale University Press
Total Pages: 152
Release: 1963-01-01
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 9780300013641

The literature on the theory of social choice has grown considerably beyond the few items in existence at the time the first edition of this book appeared in 1951. Some of the new literature has dealt with the technical, mathematical aspects, more with the interpretive. My own thinking has also evolved somewhat, although I remain far from satisfied with present formulations. The exhaustion of the first edition provides a convenient time for a selective and personal stocktaking in the form of an appended commentary entitled, 'Notes on the Theory of Social Choice, 1963, ' containing reflections on the text and its omissions and on some of the more recent literature. This form has seemed more appropriate than a revision of the original text, which has to some extent acquired a life of its own.

Collective Action and the Civil Rights Movement

Collective Action and the Civil Rights Movement
Author: Dennis Chong
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
Total Pages: 276
Release: 1991-06-18
Genre: History
ISBN: 0226104419

Collective Action and the Civil Rights Movement is a theoretical study of the dynamics of public-spirited collective action as well as a substantial study of the American civil rights movement and the local and national politics that surrounded it. In this major historical application of rational choice theory to a social movement, Dennis Chong reexamines the problem of organizing collective action by focusing on the social, psychological, and moral incentives of political activism that are often neglected by rational choice theorists. Using game theoretic concepts as well as dynamic models, he explores how rational individuals decide to participate in social movements and how these individual decisions translate into collective outcomes. In addition to applying formal modeling to the puzzling and important social phenomenon of collective action, he offers persuasive insights into the political and psychological dynamics that provoke and sustain public activism. This remarkably accessible study demonstrates how the civil rights movement succeeded against difficult odds by mobilizing community resources, resisting powerful opposition, and winning concessions from the government.

Rational Choice and Democratic Deliberation

Rational Choice and Democratic Deliberation
Author: Guido Pincione
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 249
Release: 2006-07-24
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 0521862698

This book offers a comprehensive and sustained critique of theories of deliberative democracy.