Talk:Social choice theory

Older comments
I think this page is too technical. It starts off OK, but I can't see a non-specialist understanding the sections toward the end, especially that on Sen. I corrected a few grammatical and punctuation mistakes while I read it.

Baffledexpert 02:08, 31 May 2006 (UTC)

I changed the wording of the first sentence to reflect terminology more commonly used by game theorists. This edit meant changing "individual values" to "individual preferences" and "collective choice" to "collective preferences". --Vince.Buffalo 05:31, 19 August 2006 (UTC)


 * I agree; please bring the language down to the level of the newcomer to the idea. It seems more in keeping with the wiki idea to make the information actually accessible.

Dr. Nitzan's comment on this article
Dr. Nitzan has reviewed this Wikipedia page, and provided us with the following comments to improve its quality:

""Social choice theory" is written clearly and briefly.

"Interpersonal utility comparison" requires some improvement.

In particular, social choice theory does not depend upon the ability to aggregate or sum up individual preferences into a combined social welfare function. One of its major concern is that such reasonable aggregation is problematic.

Interpersonal utility comparison is an important issue within social choice and I recommend that it is rewritten. Professor Tzachi Gilboa of Tel Aviv University is most suitable to rewrite it."

We hope Wikipedians on this talk page can take advantage of these comments and improve the quality of the article accordingly.

Dr. Nitzan has published scholarly research which seems to be relevant to this Wikipedia article:


 * Reference : Muhammad Mahajne & Shmuel Nitzan & Oscar Volij, 2013. "LEVEL r CONSENSUS AND STABLE SOCIAL CHOICE," Working Papers 1305, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Department of Economics.

ExpertIdeasBot (talk) 15:30, 31 May 2016 (UTC)

Dr. Volij's comment on this article
Dr. Volij has reviewed this Wikipedia page, and provided us with the following comments to improve its quality:

"This article deals only on the issue of interpersonal comparisons of utilities. It would be nice if it contained a few examples of the main results of the are. For instance, May's theorem and Arrow's impossibility theorem."

We hope Wikipedians on this talk page can take advantage of these comments and improve the quality of the article accordingly.

We believe Dr. Volij has expertise on the topic of this article, since he has published relevant scholarly research:


 * Reference : Muhammad Mahajne & Shmuel Nitzan & Oscar Volij, 2013. "LEVEL r CONSENSUS AND STABLE SOCIAL CHOICE," Working Papers 1305, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Department of Economics.

ExpertIdeasBot (talk) 20:33, 1 July 2016 (UTC)

Summary needs rewrite
There are many concepts that are conflated in the summary of this article, as well as inaccuracies. Social choice theory arguably dates at least as far back to the 13th century, whiich is when Ramon Llull described electoral systems later referred to as the Borda count and Copeland's method and other Condorcet methods (citation copied from the current Ramon Llull article: ). Amartya Sen's work for which he won the Nobel Prize in Economics in 1998 likely deserves mention in the summary, but is inserted strangely in the middle of the description of Kenneth Arrow's work for which he also won the Nobel Prize in 1972. The relative importance (and proper characterization) of Condorcet methods, the Condorcet paradox, Arrow's impossibility theorem, Gibbard's theorem, and the Gibbard-Satterthwaite theorem are also hotly debated topics among social choice theorists in 2021. I may get around to rewriting the summary myself, but I would appreciate it if someone else figured out how to untangle the summary, and make it more accessible to novice readers. -- RobLa (talk) 22:48, 25 November 2021 (UTC)