The purpose of this chapter is to consider a class of rules for comparing sets of objects1 in terms of the degrees of diversity that they offer. Such comparisons of sets are important for many purposes. For example, in discussing biodiversity of different ecosystems, one is interested in knowing whether or not one ecosystem is more diverse than another. Similarly, when discussing issues relating to cultural diversities of various communities, one may be interested in knowing how these communities compare with each other in terms of cultural diversity. In the economics literature, there have been several contributions to the measurement of diversity. Weitzman (1992, 1993, 1998) develops a measure of diversity based on cardinal distances between objects. Among other things, Nehring and Puppe (2002) provide a conceptual foundation for cardinal distances in Weitzman’s framework. Weikard (2002) discusses an alternative measure of diversity; Weikard’s measure is based on the sum of cardinal distances between all objects contained in a set.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
References
Bervoets, S., and Gravel, N. (2007). Appraising diversity with an ordinal notion of similarity: An axiomatic approach. Mathematical Social Sciences, 53, 259–273
Bossert, W., Pattanaik, P. K., and Xu, Y. (2003). Similarity of objects and the measurement of diversity. Journal of Theoretical Politics, 15, 405–421
Nehring, K., and Puppe, C. (2002). A theory of diversity. Econometrica, 70, 1155–1190
Pattanaik, P. K., and Xu, Y. (2000). On diversity and freedom of choice. Mathematical Social Sciences, 40, 123–130
Weikard, H. (2002). Diversity functions and the value of biodiversity. Land Economics, 78, 20–27
Weitzman, M. (1992). On diversity. Quarterly Journal of Economics, 107, 363–406
Weitzman, M. (1993). What to preserve? An application of diversity theory to crane conservation. Quarterly Journal of Economics, 108, 157–183
Weitzman, M. (1998). The Noah’s ark problem. Econometrica, 66, 1279–1298
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2008 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Pattanaik, P.K., Xu, Y. (2008). Ordinal Distance, Dominance, and the Measurement of Diversity. In: Pattanaik, P.K., Tadenuma, K., Xu, Y., Yoshihara, N. (eds) Rational Choice and Social Welfare. Studies in Choice and Welfare. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-540-79832-3_14
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-540-79832-3_14
Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg
Print ISBN: 978-3-540-79831-6
Online ISBN: 978-3-540-79832-3
eBook Packages: Business and EconomicsEconomics and Finance (R0)