So how to make group decisions? Arrow's impossibility theorem 70 years after

Abstract

PurposeIn 1951, Kenneth Arrow proved that it is not possible to have a group decision-making procedure that satisfies reasonable requirements like fairness. From the theoretical viewpoint, this is a great result – well-deserving the Nobel Prize that was awarded to Professor Arrow. However, from the practical viewpoint, the question remains – so how should we make group decisions? A usual way to solve this problem is to provide some reasonable heuristic ideas, but the problem is that different seemingly reasonable idea often lead to different group decision – this is known, e.g. for different voting schemes.Design/methodology/approachIn this paper we analyze this problem from the viewpoint of decision theory, the basic theory underlying all our activities – including economic ones.FindingsWe show how from the first-principles decision theory, we can extract explicit recommendations for group decision making.Originality/valueMost of the resulting recommendations have been proposed earlier. The main novelty of this paper is that it provides a unified coherent narrative that leads from the fundamental first principles to practical recommendations.