Choice, Preferences, and Procedures: A Rational Choice Theoretic Approach
Kotaro Suzumura is one of the world’s foremost thinkers in social choice theory and welfare economics. Bringing together essays that have become classics in the field, Choice, Preferences, and Procedures examines foundational issues of normative economics and collective decision making.

Social choice theory seeks to critically assess and rationally design economic mechanisms for improving human life. An important part of Suzumura’s contribution over the past forty years has entailed fusion of abstract microeconomic ideas with an understanding of real-world economies in a coherent analysis. This volume of selected essays reveals the evolution of Suzumura’s thinking over his career. Groundbreaking papers explore the nature of individual and social choice and the idea of assigning value to freedom of choice, different forms of rationality, and concepts of individual rights, equity, and fairness.

Suzumura elucidates his innovative approach for recognizing interpersonal comparisons in the vein of Adam Smith’s notion of sympathy and expounds the effect of paying due attention to nonconsequential features, such as the opportunity to choose and the procedure for decision making, along with the standard consequential features. Analyzing the role of economic competition, Suzumura points out how restricting competition may, in some circumstances, improve social welfare. This is not to recommend government regulation rather than market competition but to emphasize the importance of procedural features in a competitive context. He concludes with illuminating essays on the history of economic thought, focusing on the ideas of Vilfredo Pareto, Arthur Pigou, John Hicks, and Paul Samuelson.

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Choice, Preferences, and Procedures: A Rational Choice Theoretic Approach
Kotaro Suzumura is one of the world’s foremost thinkers in social choice theory and welfare economics. Bringing together essays that have become classics in the field, Choice, Preferences, and Procedures examines foundational issues of normative economics and collective decision making.

Social choice theory seeks to critically assess and rationally design economic mechanisms for improving human life. An important part of Suzumura’s contribution over the past forty years has entailed fusion of abstract microeconomic ideas with an understanding of real-world economies in a coherent analysis. This volume of selected essays reveals the evolution of Suzumura’s thinking over his career. Groundbreaking papers explore the nature of individual and social choice and the idea of assigning value to freedom of choice, different forms of rationality, and concepts of individual rights, equity, and fairness.

Suzumura elucidates his innovative approach for recognizing interpersonal comparisons in the vein of Adam Smith’s notion of sympathy and expounds the effect of paying due attention to nonconsequential features, such as the opportunity to choose and the procedure for decision making, along with the standard consequential features. Analyzing the role of economic competition, Suzumura points out how restricting competition may, in some circumstances, improve social welfare. This is not to recommend government regulation rather than market competition but to emphasize the importance of procedural features in a competitive context. He concludes with illuminating essays on the history of economic thought, focusing on the ideas of Vilfredo Pareto, Arthur Pigou, John Hicks, and Paul Samuelson.

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Choice, Preferences, and Procedures: A Rational Choice Theoretic Approach

Choice, Preferences, and Procedures: A Rational Choice Theoretic Approach

by Kotaro Suzumura
Choice, Preferences, and Procedures: A Rational Choice Theoretic Approach

Choice, Preferences, and Procedures: A Rational Choice Theoretic Approach

by Kotaro Suzumura

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Overview

Kotaro Suzumura is one of the world’s foremost thinkers in social choice theory and welfare economics. Bringing together essays that have become classics in the field, Choice, Preferences, and Procedures examines foundational issues of normative economics and collective decision making.

Social choice theory seeks to critically assess and rationally design economic mechanisms for improving human life. An important part of Suzumura’s contribution over the past forty years has entailed fusion of abstract microeconomic ideas with an understanding of real-world economies in a coherent analysis. This volume of selected essays reveals the evolution of Suzumura’s thinking over his career. Groundbreaking papers explore the nature of individual and social choice and the idea of assigning value to freedom of choice, different forms of rationality, and concepts of individual rights, equity, and fairness.

Suzumura elucidates his innovative approach for recognizing interpersonal comparisons in the vein of Adam Smith’s notion of sympathy and expounds the effect of paying due attention to nonconsequential features, such as the opportunity to choose and the procedure for decision making, along with the standard consequential features. Analyzing the role of economic competition, Suzumura points out how restricting competition may, in some circumstances, improve social welfare. This is not to recommend government regulation rather than market competition but to emphasize the importance of procedural features in a competitive context. He concludes with illuminating essays on the history of economic thought, focusing on the ideas of Vilfredo Pareto, Arthur Pigou, John Hicks, and Paul Samuelson.


Product Details

ISBN-13: 9780674725126
Publisher: Harvard University Press
Publication date: 06/06/2016
Pages: 816
Product dimensions: 6.40(w) x 9.30(h) x 2.00(d)

About the Author

Kotaro Suzumura is Professor Emeritus and Honorary Fellow, Waseda University, and Member of the Japan Academy.

Table of Contents

Preface ix

Original Sources xiii

Introduction 1

Part I Rational Choice as Rationalizable Choice

Introduction to Part I 101

Essay 1 Rational Choice and Revealed Preference 109

Essay 2 Houthakker's Axiom in the Theory of Rational Choke 127

Essay 3 Suzumura-Consistent Rationalizability 135

Essay 4 Revealed Preference and Choice under Uncertainty 157

Part II Social Choice and Welfare Economics

Introduction to Part II 175

Essay 5 Impossibility Theorems without Collective Rationality 181

Essay 6 Remarks on the Theory of Collective Choice 203

Essay 7 Arrovian Aggregation in Economic Environments: How Much Should We Know about Indifference Surfaces? 219

Essay 8 A Characterization of Suzumura-Consistent Collective Choke Rules 251

Part III Equity, Efficiency, and Intergenerational Justice

Introduction to Part III 267

Essay 9 On Pareto-Efficiency and the No-Envy Concept of Equity 273

Essay 10 The Informational Basis of the Theory of Fair Allocation 289

Essay 11 Ordering Infinite Utility Streams 329

Essay 12 Multi-Profile Intergenerational Social Choice 345

Part IV Individual Rights and Social Welfare

Introduction to Part IV 369

Essay 13 On the Consistency of Libertarian Claims 375

Essay 14 Liberal Paradox and the Voluntary Exchange of Rights Exercising 403

Essay 15 Individual Rights Revisited 423

Essay 16 Welfare, Rights, and Social Choice Procedure: A Perspective 447

Part V Consequentialism Versus Nonconsequentialism

Introduction to Part V 471

Essay 17 Consequences, Opportunities, and Procedures 477

Essay 18 Characterizations of Consequentialism and Nonconsequentialism 505

Essay 19 Consequences, Opportunities, and Generalized Consequentialism and Nonconsequentialism 521

Essay 20 Welfarist-Consequentialism, Similarity of Attitudes, and Arrow's General Impossibility Theorem 537

Part VI Competition, Cooperation, and Economic Welfare

Introduction to Part VI 559

Essay 21 Entry Barriers and Economic Welfare 565

Essay 22 Oligopolistic Competition and Economic Welfare: A General Equilibrium Analysis of Entry Regulation and Tax-Subsidy Schemes 585

Essay 23 Symmetric Cournot Oligopoly and Economic Welfare: A Synthesis 611

Essay 24 Cooperative and Noncooperative R&D in an Oligopoly with Spillovers 637

Part VII Historically Speaking

Introduction to Part VII 665

Essay 25 Introduction to Social Choice and Welfare 671

Essay 26 Paretian Welfare Judgmenrs and Bergsonian Social Choice 709

Essay 27 Welfare Economics beyond Welfarist Consequentialism 731

Essay 28 Informational Bases of Welfare Economics, Transcendental Institutionalism, and the Comparative

Assessment Approach 755

Index 771

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