Abstract
Single-peaked preferences have played an important role in the literature ever since they were used by Black (J Polit Econ 56:23–34, 1948) to formulate a domain restriction that is sufficient for the exclusion of cycles according to the majority rule. In this paper, we approach single-peakedness from a choice-theoretic perspective. We show that the well-known axiom of independence of irrelevant alternatives (a form of contraction consistency) and a continuity requirement characterize a class of single-peaked choice functions. Moreover, we examine rationalizability and representability of these choice functions.
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We thank Hervé Moulin, John Weymark, and an anonymous referee for comments. Financial support from the Research Institute CIREQ of the Université de Montréal, the Research School METEOR of the University of Maastricht and the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada is gratefully acknowledged.
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Open Access This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Noncommercial License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/2.0), which permits any noncommercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author(s) and source are credited.
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Bossert, W., Peters, H. Single-peaked choice. Econ Theory 41, 213–230 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00199-008-0393-1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00199-008-0393-1