Social choice, welfare, and ethics

the long version

The volume is divided into six parts, each exploring broad themes in social choice theory and welfare economics. The first is an overview of the short - yet intense - period of the subject's historical development. The second is a discussion of the ethical aspects of social choice, encompassing such issues as equal opportunity, individual rights, and population monotonicity. Parts three and four are devoted to algebraic and combinatorial aspects of social choice theory, including analyses of Arrow's Theorem, consensus functions, and the role of geometry. Part five deals with the application of cooperative game theory to social choice. The final section is devoted to a study of aggregation with risk aversion to current and future variables, and the creation of an intertemporal framework to go beyond the usual static description of income distributions measured over a short period.