In this paper we provide two simple new versions of Arrow’s impossibility theorem, in a model with only one preference profile. Both versions are transparent, requiring minimal mathematical sophistication. The first version assumes there are only two people in society, whose preferences are...

In this paper we provide two simple new versions of Arrow's impossibility theorem, in a model with only one preference profile. Both versions are transparent, requiring minimal mathematical sophistication. The first version assumes there are only two people in society, whose preferences are...

The death of welfare economics has been declared several times. One of the reasons cited for these plural obituaries is that Kenneth Arrow's impossibility theorem, as set out in his path-breaking Social Choice and Individual Values in 1951, has shown that the social welfare function - one of the...

The paper tries to clarify the status of the market in Social Choice and Individual Values. It shows how Arrow at first intended to propose a third theorem of welfare economics (Feldman [1991]), which would show that the market achieves not only Pareto-optimality, but also equitable social...

This paper draws an incentive-theoretical perspective on the concept of social welfare. In a simple mechanism-design framework, agents' interpersonal preferences and private payoffs are all subject to asymmetric information. Under reasonable normative assumptions, the following result is...