Transitive Social Choice in Economic Environments

Abstract

Assume a finite society, a standard space of allocations of private goods, and a domain of profiles of classical economic preferences. If social preference is expressed as a continuous preorder, then a social welfare function satisfies Arrow's independence axiom if and only if it is constant or completely authoritarian. (An authoritarian rule is one that is either dictatorial or inversely dictatorial.) Copyright 1992 by Economics Department of the University of Pennsylvania and the Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association.