Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/104157 
Year of Publication: 
2005
Series/Report no.: 
Munich Discussion Paper No. 2005-11
Publisher: 
Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München, Volkswirtschaftliche Fakultät, München
Abstract: 
Utilitarian voting (UV) is defined in this paper as any voting rule that allows the voter to rank all of the alternatives by means of the scores permitted under a given voting scale. Specific UV rules that have been proposed are approval voting, allowing the scores 0, 1; range voting, allowing all numbers in an interval as scores; evaluative voting, allowing the scores -1, 0, 1. The paper deals extensively with Arrow’s impossibility theorem that has been interpreted as precluding a satisfactory voting mechanism. I challenge the relevance of the ordinal framework in which that theorem is expressed and argue that instead utilitarian, i.e. cardinal social choice theory is relevant for voting. I show that justifications of both utilitarian social choice and of majority rule can be modified to derive UV. The most elementary derivation of UV is based on the view that no justification exists for restricting voters’ freedom to rank the alternatives on a given scale.
Subjects: 
approval voting
Arrow’s impossibility theorem
cardinal collective choice
evaluative voting
majority rule
range voting
utilitarian voting
JEL: 
D71
D72
Persistent Identifier of the first edition: 
Document Type: 
Working Paper

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