Choice, Preferences, and Procedures
A Rational Choice Theoretic Approach

Kotaro Suzumura



Kotaro Suzumura is one of the world’s foremost thinkers in social choice theory and welfare economics. Bringing together essays that have become classics in the field, Choice, Preferences, and Procedures examines foundational issues of normative economics and collective decision making.

Social choice theory seeks to critically assess and rationally design economic mechanisms for improving human life. An important part of Suzumura’s contribution over the past forty years has entailed fusion of abstract microeconomic ideas with an understanding of real-world economies in a coherent analysis. This volume of selected essays reveals the evolution of Suzumura’s thinking over his career. Groundbreaking papers explore the nature of individual and social choice and the idea of assigning value to freedom of choice, different forms of rationality, and concepts of individual rights, equity, and fairness.

Suzumura elucidates his innovative approach for recognizing interpersonal comparisons in the vein of Adam Smith’s notion of sympathy and expounds the effect of paying due attention to nonconsequential features, such as the opportunity to choose and the procedure for decision making, along with the standard consequential features. Analyzing the role of economic competition, Suzumura points out how restricting competition may, in some circumstances, improve social welfare. This is not to recommend government regulation rather than market competition but to emphasize the importance of procedural features in a competitive context. He concludes with illuminating essays on the history of economic thought, focusing on the ideas of Vilfredo Pareto, Arthur Pigou, John Hicks, and Paul Samuelson.

Table of Contents

Preface
Original Sources
Introduction

I. Rational Choice as Rationalizable Choice
Introduction to Part I
Essay 1. Rational Choice and Revealed Preference
Essay 2. Houthakker’s Axiom in the Theory of Rational Choice
Essay 3. Suzumura-Consistent Rationalizability
Essay 4. Revealed Preference and Choice under Uncertainty

II. Social Choice and Welfare Economics
Introduction to Part II
Essay 5. Impossibility Theorems without Collective Rationality
Essay 6. Remarks on the Theory of Collective Choice
Essay 7. Arrovian Aggregation in Economic Environments: How Much Should We Know about Indifference Surfaces?
Essay 8. A Characterization of Suzumura-Consistent Collective Choice Rules

III. Equity, Efficiency, and Intergenerational Justice
Introduction to Part III
Essay 9. On Pareto-Efficiency and the No-Envy Concept of Equity
Essay 10. The Informational Basis of the Theory of Fair Allocation
Essay 11. Ordering Infinite Utility Streams
Essay 12. Multi-Profile Intergenerational Social Choice

IV. Individual Rights and Social Welfare
Introduction to Part IV
Essay 13. On the Consistency of Libertarian Claims
Essay 14. Liberal Paradox and the Voluntary Exchange of Rights Exercising
Essay 15. Individual Rights Revisited
Essay 16. Welfare, Rights, and Social Choice Procedure: A Perspective

V. Consequentialism versus Nonconsequentialism
Introduction to Part V
Essay 17. Consequences, Opportunities, and Procedures
Essay 18. Characterizations of Consequentialism and Nonconsequentialism
Essay 19. Consequences, Opportunities, and Generalized Consequentialism and Nonconsequentialism
Essay 20. Welfarist-Consequentialism, Similarity of Attitudes, and Arrow’s General Impossibility Theorem

VI. Competition, Cooperation, and Economic Welfare
Introduction to Part VI
Essay 21. Entry Barriers and Economic Welfare
Essay 22. Oligopolistic Competition and Economic Welfare: A General Equilibrium Analysis of Entry Regulation and Tax-Subsidy Schemes
Essay 23. Symmetric Cournot Oligopoly and Economic Welfare: A Synthesis
Essay 24. Cooperative and Noncooperative R&D in an Oligopoly with Spillovers

VII. Historically Speaking
Introduction to Part VII
Essay 25. Introduction to Social Choice and Welfare
Essay 26. Paretian Welfare Judgments and Bergsonian Social Choice
Essay 27. Welfare Economics beyond Welfarist Consequentialism
Essay 28. Informational Bases of Welfare Economics, Transcendental Institutionalism, and the Comparative Assessment Approach

Index