Abstract
Two contradictory views on the relationship between independence of irrelevant alternatives and welfarism have appeared in the social choice literature. I show that the contradictory views result from the use of two different forms of independence of irrelevant alternatives. It is shown that one form implies welfarism while the other does not.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Arrow K (1963) Social choice and individual values, 2nd edn. Wiley, New York
Kemp M, Ng YK (1987) Arrow's independence condition and the Bergson-Samuelson tradition. In: Feiwel G (ed) Arrow and the foundations of the theory of economic policy. Macmillan, London
Mueller DC (1979) Public choice. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge
Ng YK (1979) Welfare economics. Macmillan, London
Ng YK (1985) Some fundamental issues in social welfare. In: Feiwel G (ed) Issues in contemporary microeconomics & welfare. Macmillan, London
Osborne DK (1976) Irrelevant alternatives and social welfare. Econometrica 44:1001–1015
Ray P (1973) Independence of irrelevant alternatives. Econometrica 41:987–991
Sen AK (1982) Choice, welfare and measurement. MIT Press, Cambridge, Mass
Sen AK (1985) Social choice and justice: A review article. J Econ Lit XXIII:1764–1776
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Additional information
I would like to thank Peter Murrell, Yew-Kwang Ng, Amartya Sen and an anonymous referee for helpful comments on earlier drafts of this paper.
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Kennelly, B. Welfarism, IIA and arrovian constitutional rules. Soc Choice Welfare 5, 307–311 (1988). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00433659
Received:
Accepted:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00433659