Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/245498 
Year of Publication: 
2021
Series/Report no.: 
CESifo Working Paper No. 9317
Publisher: 
Center for Economic Studies and ifo Institute (CESifo), Munich
Abstract: 
We investigate how individuals think groups should aggregate members' ordinal preferences -that is, how they interpret "the will of the people." In an experiment, we elicit revealed attitudes toward ordinal preference aggregation and classify subjects according to the rules they apparently deploy. Majoritarianism is rare. Instead, people employ rules that place greater weight on compromise options. The classification's fit is excellent, and clustering analysis reveals that it does not omit important rules. We ask whether rules are stable across domains, whether people impute cardinal utility from ordinal ranks, and whether attitudes toward aggregation differ across countries with divergent traditions.
Subjects: 
preference aggregation
experiment
social welfare analysis
JEL: 
C91
D71
Document Type: 
Working Paper
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