Social Choice Theory

Catalog description

This course investigates a topic which lies at the heart of economic, social and political sciences, namely the aggregation of individual preferences. Can a society as a whole exhibit preferences as individuals do? Can these preferences be based on individual ones, and show the same level of coherence? Which process can lead from individual preferences to the preferences of the society? At the end of the 18th century, the pioneers in the field already realized that mathematics is the only language powerful enough to make deep progress in the understanding of these questions. The formalization involves pure logic as well as geometry and combinatorics.