We present a restriction on the domain of individual preferences that is both necessary and sufficient for the existence of a social choice rule that is continuous, anonymous, and respects unanimity. The restriction is that the space of preferences be contractible. Contractibility admits a...

In this paper I describe certain results that were obtained in the UNITAR project based on a model I have specified for studying the relationship between international terms of trade and domestic income distributions of the exporting countries within the South. In particular, I shall concentrate...

This paper revisits the aggregation theorem of Chichilnisky (1980), replacing the original smooth topology by the closed convergence topology and responding to several comments (N. Baigent (1984, 1985, 1987, 1989), N. Baigent and P. Huang (1990) and M. LeBreton and J. Uriarte (1900 a, b)....

A conference report on UNESCO and Fundacion Bariloche sponsored conference with policy-oriented scientists from Africa, Europe, Latin America, and the United States of December 1976. The focus was on global modelling, its formalization and reliability. The applications were to problems of...

Physical considerations alone cannot explain the volatile behavior of resource prices, or the effects these have on different regions of the world. An optimization analysis may not suffice either, since typically there are several distinct objectives: conservation, cost-minimization, and the...

The present acceleration of environmental destruction can be linked to the economic trading strategies that came into vogue after World War II. The theory of comparative advantages of trade, which recommends that developing countries emphasize resource exports and exports of labor-intensive...

The theory of social choice introduced in [5,6] is robust; it is completely independent of the choice of topology on spaces of preference. This theory has been fruitful in linking diverse forms of resource allocation; it has been shown [17] that contractibility is necessary and sufficient for...

The concept of basic needs is today at the center of many discussions about development and the international order. Some international organizations are rethinking their prior evaluation of development policies based largely on aggregate economic output, in particular, the welfare of the very...

This chapter focusses on global environmental risks such as climate change, an issue that must be confronted as we move into the future. It proposes sound principles of risk management that make sense in today's society generally, going beyond their role of averting and hedging climate risks....

To explain the patterns of world trade of resources, this paper combines the biological dynamics of the renewable resource and game theoretical explanations of its extraction under different property regimes, with a general equilibrium model of North South trade (Chichilnisky, 1981, 1986). The...