Application of Fuzzy Logic to Social Choice Theory


Book Description

Fuzzy social choice theory is useful for modeling the uncertainty and imprecision prevalent in social life yet it has been scarcely applied and studied in the social sciences. Filling this gap, Application of Fuzzy Logic to Social Choice Theory provides a comprehensive study of fuzzy social choice theory.The book explains the concept of a fuzzy max




Fuzzy Social Choice Theory


Book Description

This book offers a comprehensive analysis of the social choice literature and shows, by applying fuzzy sets, how the use of fuzzy preferences, rather than that of strict ones, may affect the social choice theorems. To do this, the book explores the presupposition of rationality within the fuzzy framework and shows that the two conditions for rationality, completeness and transitivity, do exist with fuzzy preferences. Specifically, this book examines: the conditions under which a maximal set exists; the Arrow’s theorem; the Gibbard-Satterthwaite theorem and the median voter theorem. After showing that a non-empty maximal set does exists for fuzzy preference relations, this book goes on to demonstrating the existence of a fuzzy aggregation rule satisfying all five Arrowian conditions, including non-dictatorship. While the Gibbard-Satterthwaite theorem only considers individual fuzzy preferences, this work shows that both individuals and groups can choose alternatives to various degrees, resulting in a social choice that can be both strategy-proof and non-dictatorial. Moreover, the median voter theorem is shown to hold under strict fuzzy preferences but not under weak fuzzy preferences. By providing a standard model of fuzzy social choice and by drawing the necessary connections between the major theorems, this book fills an important gap in the current literature and encourages future empirical research in the field.







Fuzzy Social Choice Models


Book Description

This book explores the extent to which fuzzy set logic can overcome some of the shortcomings of public choice theory, particularly its inability to provide adequate predictive power in empirical studies. Especially in the case of social preferences, public choice theory has failed to produce the set of alternatives from which collective choices are made. The book presents empirical findings achieved by the authors in their efforts to predict the outcome of government formation processes in European parliamentary and semi-presidential systems. Using data from the Comparative Manifesto Project (CMP), the authors propose a new approach that reinterprets error in the coding of CMP data as ambiguity in the actual political positions of parties on the policy dimensions being coded. The range of this error establishes parties’ fuzzy preferences. The set of possible outcomes in the process of government formation is then calculated on the basis of both the fuzzy Pareto set and the fuzzy maximal set, and the predictions are compared with those made by two conventional approaches as well as with the government that was actually formed. The comparison shows that, in most cases, the fuzzy approaches outperform their conventional counterparts.




Fuzzy Choice Functions


Book Description

This book extends the theory of revealed preference to fuzzy choice functions, providing applications to multicriteria decision making problems. The main topics of revealed preference theory are treated in the framework of fuzzy choice functions. New topics, such as the degree of dominance and similarity of vague choices, are developed. The results are applied to economic problems where partial information and human subjectivity involve vague choices and vague preferences.




Handbook of Social Choice and Welfare


Book Description

This second part of a two-volume set continues to describe economists' efforts to quantify the social decisions people necessarily make and the philosophies that those choices define. Contributors draw on lessons from philosophy, history, and other disciplines, but they ultimately use editor Kenneth Arrow's seminal work on social choice as a jumping-off point for discussing ways to incentivize, punish, and distribute goods. Develops many subjects from Volume 1 (2002) while introducing new themes in welfare economics and social choice theory Features four sections: Foundations, Developments of the Basic Arrovian Schemes, Fairness and Rights, and Voting and Manipulation Appeals to readers who seek introductions to writings on human well-being and collective decision-making Presents a spectrum of material, from initial insights and basic functions to important variations on basic schemes




Consensus Under Fuzziness


Book Description

We live, unfortunately, in turbulent and difficult times plagued by various political, economic, and social problems, as well as by natural disasters worldwide. Systems become more and more complicated, and this concerns all levels, exemplified first by global political alliances, groups of countries, regions, etc., and secondly, by multinational (global) corporations and companies of all sizes. These same concerns affect all social groups. This all makes decision processes very complicated. In virtually all decision processes in these complicated systems, there are various actors (decision makers) who represent individual subjects (persons, countries, companies, etc.) and their respective interest groups. To reach a meaningful (good) decision, opinions of all such actors must be taken into account or a given decision may be rejected and not implemented. Ideally, a decision would be made after a consensus between the parties involved had been attained. So, consensus is a very desirable situation. In most real-world cases there is considerable uncertainty concerning all aspects of the decision making process. Moreover, opinions, goals, constraints, etc. are usually imprecisely known. This makes the decision making process difficult as one cannot employ conventional "hard" tools.




Preferences and Decisions


Book Description

Decision making is an omnipresent, most crucial activity of the human being, and also of virtually all artificial broadly perceived “intelligent” systems that try to mimic human behavior, reasoning and choice processes. It is quite obvious that such a relevance of decision making had triggered vast research effort on its very essence, and attempts to develop tools and techniques which would make it possible to somehow mimic human decision making related acts, even to automate decision making processes that had been so far reserved for the human beings. The roots of those attempts at a scientific analysis can be traced to the ancient times but – clearly – they have gained momentum in the recent 50 or 100 years following a general boom in science. Depending on the field of science, decision making can be viewed in different ways. The most general view can be that decision making boils down to some cognitive, mental process(es) that lead to the selection of an option or a course of action among several alternatives. Then, looking in a deeper way, from a psychological perspective this process proceeds in the context of a set of needs, preferences, rational choice of an individual, a group of individuals, or even an organization. From a cognitive perspective, the decision making process proceeds in the context of various interactions with the environment.




Multicriteria and Multiagent Decision Making with Applications to Economics and Social Sciences


Book Description

The book provides a comprehensive and timely report on the topic of decision making and decision analysis in economics and the social sciences. The various contributions included in the book, selected using a peer review process, present important studies and research conducted in various countries around the globe. The majority of these studies are concerned with the analysis, modeling and formalization of the behavior of groups or committees that are in charge of making decisions of social and economic importance. Decisions in these contexts have to meet precise coherence standards and achieve a significant degree of sharing, consensus and acceptance, even in uncertain and fuzzy environments. This necessitates the confluence of several research fields, such as foundations of social choice and decision making, mathematics, complexity, psychology, sociology and economics. A large spectrum of problems that may be encountered during decision making and decision analysis in the areas of economics and the social sciences, together with a broad range of tools and techniques that may be used to solve those problems, are presented in detail in this book, making it an ideal reference work for all those interested in analyzing and implementing mathematical tools for application to relevant issues involving the economy and society.




Handbook of Utility Theory


Book Description

The standard rationality hypothesis implies that behaviour can be represented as the maximization of a suitably restricted utility function. This hypothesis lies at the heart of a large body of recent work in economics, of course, but also in political science, ethics, and other major branches of social sciences. Though the utility maximization hypothesis is venerable, it remains an area of active research. Moreover, some fundamental conceptual problems remain unresolved, or at best have resolutions that are too recent to have achieved widespread understanding among social scientists. The main purpose of the Handbook of Utility Theory is to make recent developments in the area more accessible. The editors selected a number of specific topics, and invited contributions from researchers whose work had come to their attention. Therefore, the list of topics and contributions is largely the editors' responsibility. Each contributor's chapter has been refereed, and revised according to the referees' remarks. This is the first volume of a two volume set, with the second volume focusing on extensions of utility theory.