Copyright

Martin Osborne; Ariel Rubinstein

Published On

2020-03-27

Page Range

pp. 313-328

Print Length

15 pages

Aggregating preferences

When we discuss public decisions, we often talk about the preferences of a group of people, like a nation, a class, or a family. We do so even though the members of the group have different preferences; we say that “the group prefers one option to another” even though the meaning of such a statement is unclear. In this chapter we discuss one model of the aggregation of individuals’ preferences into a social preference relation.