Cardinality and Utilitarianism through social interactions

Alon, Shiri; Lehrer, Ehud

Abstract

We provide axioms that relate the preferences of each group in a society to the preferences of the subgroups contained in them. These axioms yield cardinal utility indices for each individual and a representation of group preferences as the group-dependent weighted sum of the utility indices of the members of that group. We show that these weights are group-independent whenever one additional axiom, and a mild linear independence assumption are satisfied.

Citation

Alon, S., & Lehrer, E. (in press). Cardinality and Utilitarianism through social interactions. American Economic Journal: Microeconomics,

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Acceptance Date: Apr 25, 2025
• Deposit Date: May 1, 2025
• Journal: American Economic Journal: Microeconomics
• Print ISSN: 1945-7669
• Electronic ISSN: 1945-7685
• Publisher: American Economic Association
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Keywords: Utilitarianism, ordinal preferences, social context, axiomatization
• Public URL: https://durham-repository.worktribe.com/output/3822810
• Publisher URL: https://www.aeaweb.org/articles?id=10.1257/mic.20240068&&from=f