The paper presents Kenneth Arrow’s interpretation of the competitive general equilibrium model, arguing he used it to articulate an ambitious critique of what he called the 'neoclassical theory.' Without arguing that Arrow’s account of neoclassical theory was correct, I explore how Arrow was...

We frame sustainability problems as bargaining problems among stakeholders who have to agree on a common development path. For infinite alternatives, the set of feasible payoffs is unknown, limiting the possibility to apply classical bargaining theory and mechanisms. We define a framework...

Recent theoretical work in the economics of climate change has suggested that climate policy is highly sensitive to "fat-tailed" risks of catastrophic outcomes (Weitzman, 2009b). Such risks are suggested to be an inevitable consequence of scientific uncertainty about the effects of increased...

We propose the concept of level r consensus as a useful property of a preference profile which considerably enhances the stability of social choice. This concept involves a weakening of unanimity, the most extreme form of consensus. It is shown that if a preference profile exhibits level r...

We investigate how individuals think groups should aggregate members' ordinal preferences - that is, how they interpret "the will of the people." In an experiment, we elicit revealed attitudes toward ordinal preference aggregation and classify subjects according to the rules they apparently...

Can neural networks learn to select an alternative based on a systematic aggregation of conflicting individual preferences (i.e. a 'voting rule')? And if so, which voting rule best describes their behavior? We show that a prominent neural network can be trained to respect two fundamental...