The impossibility of unbiased judgment aggregation

Theory and Decision 68 (3):281-299 (2007)
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Abstract

Standard impossibility theorems on judgment aggregation over logically connected propositions either use a controversial systematicity condition or apply only to agen- das of propositions with rich logical connections. Are there any serious impossibilities without these restrictions? We prove an impossibility theorem without systematicity that applies to most standard agendas: Every judgment aggregation function (with rational inputs and outputs) satisfying a condition called unbiasedness is dictatorial (or e¤ectively dictatorial if we remove one of the agenda conditions). Our agenda conditions are tight. Applied illustratively to (strict) preference aggregation repres- ented in our model, the result implies that every unbiased social welfare function with universal domain is e¤ectively dictatorial.

Author Profiles

Franz Dietrich
Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique

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