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Instructors: Prof. Dr. Salvatore Barbaro
Event type:
Lecture
Displayed in timetable as:
03.184.4170
Hours per week:
2
Language of instruction:
Englisch
Min. | Max. participants:
- | -
Requirements / organisational issues:
Introductory Microeconomics
Contents:
Rules (institutions) are the major determinants in explaining economic outcomes, such as differences in developments. Social Choice deals with the origin and formation of rules (collective decisions). How should we choose our rules or even our incumbents? The easy answer is to hold elections. However, there are many possible voting methods and often each method brings forth another outcome even by letting citizens' preferences unchanged. Is there a voting scheme (generally speaking: a collective-choice rule) that satisfies the minimum requirements of democratic decision making? The sharp answer is no. The reason is concerned with Arrow's impossibility theorem. It states that even a very mild set of sound conditions cannot be satisfied by any electoral procedures.
The Arrow impossibility theorem has been the starting point of the modern social choice theory. It deals, bluntly speaking, with how to aggregate citizens' wishes best. The module provides an interdisciplinary approach.
Outline:
1. Introduction: Social-choice theory as an approach [sen, 2009, p. 91ff]
2. Preference Relations and Social Preference [sen, 2017; ch. 1*, ch. a1*]
3. Welfare Economics (Bergson-Samuelson) [sen, 2017; ch. 3*, ch. a3*]
4. Arrow‘s impossibility theorem and Arrovian social-welfare functions [sen, 1995aer, maskin and sen 2014]
5. Voting Theory and the robustness result in favour of the simple-majority rule
6. Strategy proofness (Dasgupta and Maskin 2021)
7. Social choice and political polarization
8. The Liberal Paradox [sen (1970), sen, 2017; ch. 6*, ch. a5 - a6]
9. Theory of Justice [(sen, 2009, ch. 1 - 3, part 4)]
10. Economics and Democracy [(sen, 2009, part iv), habermas (2019)]
Recommended reading list:
Sen, A.: Collective Choice and Social Welfare (2017)
Sen, A.: The Idea of Justice (2009)
Sen, A.: How to judge voting schemes. Journal of Economic Perspectives 9 (1995), p. 91–98.
Sen, A.: Rationality and social choice. American Economic Review 85 (1995), p. 1–24.
Sen A.: (1970) The impossibility of a Paretian liberal. J Political Economy 72 (1970), p. 152-157
Maskin, Sen: The Arrow Impossibility Theorem (2014)
May, K.O. 1952. A set of independent necessary and sufficient conditions for simple majority decision.
Econometrica 20:680–684.
Habermas, J.: Faktizität und Geltung (2019).
Skaperdas, S.: Cooperation, Conflict, and Power in the Absence of Property Rights. American Economic Review 82 (1992), p. 720-239
Williamson, O.: The New Institutional Economics: Taking Stock, Looking Ahead. JeconPersp 38 (2000), p. 595-613
Digital teaching:
The course will be held on BBB platform in case that the pandemic does not allow lectures on campus.
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