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1 dictator = 2 voters

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Abstract

For the case of strict preferences, a measure of a voter’s average power in a dictatorial social welfare function is defined making the dictator never have more average power than three voters and, as the number of voters grows, making the dictator average power converge to the average power of two voters. This result suggests, as those in Tangian (2004), that dictatorial social welfare functions might not be as undesirable aggregation rules as traditionally held.

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References

  • Arrow, K. (1963). Social choice and individual values (2nd edn). New York: Wiley.

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  • Brualdi, R.A. (1999). Introductory combinatorics (3rd edn). Upper Saddle River, New Jersey: Prentice Hall.

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  • Tangian, A. (2003). Combinatorial and probabilistic investigation of Arrow’s paradox, Diskussionsbeitrag Nr. 336 des Fachbereichs Wirtschaftswissenschaft der FernUniversität Hagen, Hagen. Retrieved from http://www.fernuni-hagen.de/wiwi/forschung/veroeffentlichungen/2003.shtml.

  • Tangian, A. (2004). How dictatorial are Arrow’s dictators? (Paper presented at the 7th International Meeting of the Society for Social Choice and Welfare, Osaka).

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Correspondence to Antonio Quesada.

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Quesada, A. 1 dictator = 2 voters. Public Choice 130, 395–400 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11127-006-9094-0

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11127-006-9094-0

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