<abstract xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"><p>The usual, pessimistic interpretation of Arrow’s General Possibility Theorem (often “Impossibility” in textbooks) is excessive. The impossibility defined by Arrow occurs only in presence of a tie or of a cycle. These cases are rare or very rare, and their presence may be assessed ex post. If they occur it is necessary to resort to a second-best rule, but this two-stage procedure does not induce strategic behavior, nor impeaches the use of the Condorcet rule (in observance of the axioms) in all the others.</p><p>The paper conclusions sustain that implementation of modern management systems to government’s public institutions should deal with a different behavior used to know at companies. In this respect, the paper high-lights different aspects between companies and public institutions behavior admitting similarities on organizational structure and internal procedures.</p></abstract>

The usual, pessimistic interpretation of Arrow’s General Possibility Theorem (often “Impossibility” in textbooks) is excessive. The impossibility defined by Arrow occurs only in presence of a tie or of a cycle. These cases are rare or very rare, and their presence may be assessed ex post. If they occur it is necessary to resort to a second-best rule, but this two-stage procedure does not induce strategic behavior, nor impeaches the use of the Condorcet rule (in observance of the axioms) in all the others.The paper conclusions sustain that implementation of modern management systems to government’s public institutions should deal with a different behavior used to know at companies. In this respect, the paper high-lights different aspects between companies and public institutions behavior admitting similarities on organizational structure and internal procedures.

A commonsense assessment of Arrow’s theorem

Journal of Heterodox Economics

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 3.0 License.

{"article-title":"A commonsense assessment of Arrow\u2019s theorem"}

The usual, pessimistic interpretation of Arrow’s General Possibility Theorem (often “Impossibility” in textbooks) is excessive. The impossibility defined by...

A commonsense assessment of Arrow’s theorem

Publié en ligne: 18 avr. 2017

Pages: 54 - 62

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1515/jheec-2016-0003

Mots clés
Arrow’s Theorem, Social Choice, Condorcet Rule

© 2016 Guido Ortona, published by De Gruyter Open

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 3.0 License.

A commonsense assessment of Arrow’s theorem

Publié en ligne: 18 avr. 2017

Pages: 54 - 62

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1515/jheec-2016-0003

Mots clésArrow’s Theorem, Social Choice, Condorcet Rule

© 2016 Guido Ortona, published by De Gruyter Open

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 3.0 License.

Mots clés
Arrow’s Theorem, Social Choice, Condorcet Rule