Conversations on Social Choice and Welfare Theory - Vol. 1

This interview conducted in Caen in June 1996 discussed many aspects of John Harsanyi's academic career, starting with his 1947 doctoral thesis at the University of Budapest on errors in philosophical arguments. We then moved on to his training in economics at the University of Sydney, his first position at the University of Queensland, and his move to Stanford to study game theory with Kenneth Arrow, who was the adviser for his PhD dissertation on bargaining. Harsanyi recalled that his foundational work on the impartial observer arose from a comment by Friedman and Savage on the work of Vickrey. We also discussed his important work on bargaining and on games of incomplete information, including the “Harsanyi doctrine”. Then, amongst other topics, the interview also touched on his work on the welfare economics of variable tastes, his views of Rawls’ Theory of Justice, and his advocacy of rule utilitarianism, including its application to the decision whether to vote and to other issues of personal morality.

Social Choice and Welfare has a tradition of interviewing pioneering contributors to welfare economics and social choice theory to keep their recollections on the formative stages of their seminal work, their current views on the past and present states of the art, and their perspectives on the agendas to be pursued in this branch of normative economics officially on record.

The following is the edited version of an interview conducted on July 4, 1987, with Professor Sen in London.

Barberà recounts his days at Northwestern as a graduate student in the early 1970s evoking the role of Stanley Reiter and his meeting with Theodore Groves and Hugo Sonnenschein, his collaborations with Prasanta Pattanaik, Federico Valenciano and others, his work on strategy-proofness, restricted domains and stochastic choice. He describes the development of economics in recent times in Spain, with, in particular, the organization of the world meeting of the Econometric Society in Barcelona in 1990 and the organization of graduate studies in English within IDEA.

John Broome describes his journey from economics to philosophy, from general equilibrium theory and optimal taxation to intentionality and rationality, as well as more applied topics such as health measurement or climate change. He reflects on utilitarianism and prioritarianism and questions the latter’s approach to the moral valuation of wellbeing. He revisits Harsanyi’s aggregation theorem and its generalization to betterness relations, as well as the relation between wellbeing and risk preferences, and how these considerations bear on interpersonal comparisons. Population ethics and the intuition of neutrality about population size, as well as the possibility to make judgments that are relative to the evaluator’s position in time and space, are critically scrutinized.

Gabrielle Demange alludes to her studies in mathematics in Paris, her interest, as a student, in game theory through a course given by Hervé Moulin. She evokes her collaboration with David Gale and Ahmet Alkan, her work on coalition formation, her joint work with Michel Balinski on bi-divisor methods (which is applied in apportionment in Switzerland).

David Donaldson describes his graduate studies at Stanford with Kenneth Arrow and Hirofumi Uzawa, his meeting with Charles Blackorby, his collaborations with Walter Bossert and John Weymark, his work on utilitarianism, poverty measurement, inequality, commenting on John Harsanyi, John Broome and others.

Mathematics is crucial in Peter Fishburn’s conversation. After a thesis in operations research, Fishburn is known for the extremely formal approach he developed in utility theory, measurement theory and social choice, but also for contributions to more applied domains such as voting (in particular for his joint work with Steve Brams on approval voting). He explains why he neglected game theory by the kind of formalism he was familiar with.

Allan Gibbard’s conversation begins with some biographical remarks. The importance of the moral philosopher Richard Brandt is emphasized as an early source of inspiration. Gibbard’s graduate studies at Harvard are recalled with special attention given to the Arrow-Rawls-Sen seminar. The transitivity of social preference and rights in social choice are discussed. Gibbard’s contributions to strategy-proof social choice (the Gibbard-Satterthwaite Theorem), utilitarianism, causal decision theory, and meta-ethics are examined in some detail.

Prasanta Pattanaik explains his choice of economics as a student (switching from Sanskrit). He recalls his formation in logic and in moral philosophy, and the role of Amartya Sen as his Ph.D. supervisor. Strategic voting, deprivation, choice of opportunity sets are considered.

The conversation shows the journey of a radical social scientist from Marxism to modern contributions to social justice, normative economics, political competition and many topics related to distributive justice, including recently climate justice.

In this conversation, William Thomson discusses the role of the axiomatic method in economic design. He comments on the role Nash’s bargaining theory played in the development of his interest in the axiomatic method. He contrasts the abstract theory of Arrovian social choice with the axiomatic study of concrete models of resource allocation. He discusses how the study of how to adjudicate conflicting claims can serve as an introduction to the field of economic design.

John Weymark’s conversation begins with some biographical remarks. The importance of his undergraduate teachers, notably David Donaldson, for his subsequent research interests is discussed. His graduate studies and his thesis under the direction of Karl Shell are recalled. The nature and origins of Weymark’s research on topics such as optimal taxation, inequality measurement, cartel stability, social choice with interpersonal utility comparisons, Harsanyi’s decision-theoretic foundations for utilitarianism, strategy-proof social choice, biological applications of social choice theory, and the political economy of taxation are explored. The conversation concludes with reflections on his teaching and editorial activities.