Template-type: ReDif-Paper 1.0
Author-Name: Ehlers Lars 
Author-Name: Storcken Ton 
Author-workplace-name: METEOR
Title: Oligarchies in Spatial Environments
Abstract: In spatial environments we consider social welfare functions satisfying Arrow''s requirements, i.e. weak Pareto and independence of irrelevant alternatives. Individual preferences measure distances between alternatives according to the Lp-norm (for a fixed p > 1). When the policy space is multi-dimensional and the set of alternatives has a non-empty interior and it is compact and convex, any quasi-transitive welfare function must be oligarchic. As a corollary we obtain that for transitive welfare functions weak Pareto, independence of irrelevant alternatives, and non-dictatorship are inconsistent if the set of alternatives has a non-empty interior and it is compact and convex.
Keywords: mathematical economics; 
Series: Research Memoranda
Creation-Date: 2007
Number: 042
File-URL: http://digitalarchive.maastrichtuniversity.nl/fedora/objects/guid:5e2ec7ee-75fc-43e2-b673-03b2bc325c1b/datastreams/ASSET1/content
File-Format: application/pdf
File-Size: 188964
Handle: RePEc:unm:umamet:2007042