Brief Description
This book is a positive analysis of voting 'paradoxes' and argues that negative 'impossibility' results are not justified.
Learn More about the Book
We decide by elections, but do we elect who the voters really want? The answer, as we have learned over the last two centuries, is not necessarily. What a negative, frightening assertion about a principal tool of democracy! This negativism has been supported by two hundred years of published results showing how bad the situation can be. This expository, largely non-technical book is the first to find positive results showing that the situation is not anywhere as dire and negative as we have been led to believe. Instead there are surprisingly simple explanations for the negative assertions, and positive conclusions can be obtained."
About the Author
Donald G. Saari is Distinguished Professor of Mathematics and Economics and Honorary Professor of Logic and Philosophy of Science at the University of California Irvine, where he is Director of the Institute for Mathematical Behavioral Sciences. He previously served on the faculty of Northwestern University from 1968 to 2000, where he held the Pancoe Professorship of Mathematics. A Member of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences, Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, Professor Saari is the former Chief Editor of the Bulletin of the American Mathematical Society. The author of more than 170 published papers, he has also written numerous books, including Basic Geometry of Voting (1995), Decisions and Elections: Explaining the Unexpected (Cambridge University Press, 2001), Chaotic Elections! A Mathematician Looks at Voting (2001), The Way It Was: Mathematics from the Early Years of the Bulletin (2003), and Collisions, Rings, and Other Newtonian N-Body Problems (2005).
Review Quotes
1. "Harold Demsetz's contributions to economics are well known for their simple originality and have laid important foundations in many areas of economics. With this book, Harold Demsetz continues to spoil his audience with a wide-ranging array of novel and thought-provoking essays." - Francesco Parisi, University of Minnesota and University of Bologna
2. "The book From Economic Man to Economic System is an excellent piece of research, which focuses on various economic discussions of individual behavior and the behavior of economic institutions. Tackling the important issues of self-interest and capitalism and its institutions, it is worthwhile reading for everyone who is interested in economic decisions and economic institutions." - Friedrich Schneider, Johannes Kepler University of Linz
3. "This lovely set of essays provides a small intellectual feast. The readings are a delight for the thoughtful economist and should be an excellent supplement for any number of undergraduate or graduate economic courses or law school offerings. Demsetz is an old-fashioned economist in the best sense of the term. He writes and thinks about important economic questions in the tradition of Smith, Malthus, Ricardo, Knight, Viner, and Coase. His is not the economics of sterile equations and diagrams but the lively engagement with fundamental questions such as the root of property rights, the delayed emergence of capitalism; and declining family size. He demonstrates the power of simple straightforward economic instincts and principles when wielded by a sharp mind aided by a fluid pen to enlighten important social questions." - Lloyd Cohen, George Mason University
4. "From Economic Man to Economic System brings Harold Demsetz's deep learning and analytical insights to bear on ongoing intellectual debates addressing the efficiency (and efficacy) of unfettered market capitalism, the regulation of environmental quality and the modern business corporation, and the causes of the wealth of nations. The 11 essays collected here are uniformly well crafted and thought-provoking. Maintaining accessibility without sacrificing rigor, Professor Demsetz traces the institutions of capitalism - the market and the firm - to their source, masterfully probing the nature of Homo Economicus in that agent's starkest manifestation, thereby laying a foundation for astute commentaries on the selfish gene versus economically rational altruism, on the problems of establishing and defining ownership rights, on private property rights versus communal rights, on misinterpretations of the Coasian concept of 'transaction costs, ' and on the consequences of confusing transaction costs with the costs of using the price system. The product of a lifetime of reflection by one of the economics profession's most penetrating thinkers, From Economic Man to Economic System will be of interest to economists, legal scholars, and many others." - William F. Shughart II, F.A.P. Barnard Distinguished Professor of Economics, University of Mississippi
5. "Donald Saari provides not only an engaging and accessible explanation of the celebrated dictatorial theorems of Arrow, Sen, and Chichilnisky but also an intuitive argument for why we should not be surprised by the negative results of these seminal theorems. More importantly, Disposing Dictators, Demystifying Voting Paradoxes describes how to obtain positive versions of the theorems. In his usual compelling style, Saari challenges all current and future scholars in social choice to avoid becoming mired in technical difficulties and to strive for similar positive results that will inform and shape the voting procedures in our political and organizational structures." - Tommy Ratliff, Wheaton College
6. "Arrow's theorem is at the origin of the birth of modern social choice theory in the late 1940s and 1950s. Sen's theorem on liberalism and the Pareto principle (published in 1970) created an upsurge of fundamental studies in the so-called non-welfaristic issues in normative economics. Both results are essentially negative (impossibilities). Saari, in this book, demonstrates that we must not overestimate these negative aspects. Particularly noteworthy are the remarkable presentations of the topological approach to social choice and of the generic stability of the core of voting games (including a very short introduction to a new solution concept, the finesse point), where Saari, once again, shows his wonderful pedagogical talent." - Maurice Salles, University of Caen
7. "Donald G. Saari is a mathematician, economist, systems engineer, and astronomer who has brought profound new insights into the theory of voting and social choice. Through his sophisticated methodology based on dynamical systems theory, mechanism design, topology, and geometry, he has thoroughly invigorated this largely combinatorics- and algebra-oriented field of research. It is no exaggeration to say that Saari is a leading social choice theorist of our time. The future generations of social choice theorists will certainly find much inspiration and profound insights in this book. For anyone working in the field of voting and social choice the book will provide a rich collection of results, methodological tools, and challenging open problems." - Hannu Nurmi, Academy of Finland
8. Arrow 's theorem is at the origin of the birth of modern social choice theory in the late 1940s and 1950s. Sen 's theorem on liberalism and the Pareto principle (published in 1970) created an upsurge of fundamental studies in the so-called non-welfaristic issues in normative economics. Both results are essentially negative (impossibilities). Saari, in this book, demonstrates that we must not overestimate these negative aspects. Particularly noteworthy are the remarkable presentations of the topological approach to social choice and of the generic stability of the core of voting games (including a very short introduction to a new solution concept, the finesse point), where Saari, once again, shows his wonderful pedagogical talent. Maurice Salles, University of Caen
9. Donald G. Saari is a mathematician, economist, systems engineer, and astronomer who has brought profound new insights into the theory of voting and social choice. Through his sophisticated methodology based on dynamical systems theory, mechanism design, topology, and geometry, he has thoroughly invigorated this largely combinatorics- and algebra-oriented field of research. It is no exaggeration to say that Saari is a leading social choice theorist of our time. The future generations of social choice theorists will certainly find much inspiration and profound insights in this book. For anyone working in the field of voting and social choice the book will provide a rich collection of results, methodological tools, and challenging open problems.
Hannu Nurmi, Academy of Finland"
10. Donald Saari provides not only an engaging and accessible explanation of the celebrated dictatorial theorems of Arrow, Sen, and Chichilnisky but also an intuitive argument for why we should not be surprised by the negative results of these seminal theorems. More importantly, Disposing Dictators, Demystifying Voting Paradoxes describes how to obtain positive versions of the theorems. In his usual compelling style, Saari challenges all current and future scholars in social choice to avoid becoming mired in technical difficulties and to strive for similar positive results that will inform and shape the voting procedures in our political and organizational structures.
Tommy Ratliff, Wheaton College"
11. Arrow s theorem is at the origin of the birth of modern social choice theory in the late 1940s and 1950s. Sen s theorem on liberalism and the Pareto principle (published in 1970) created an upsurge of fundamental studies in the so-called non-welfaristic issues in normative economics. Both results are essentially negative (impossibilities). Saari, in this book, demonstrates that we must not overestimate these negative aspects. Particularly noteworthy are the remarkable presentations of the topological approach to social choice and of the generic stability of the core of voting games (including a very short introduction to a new solution concept, the finesse point), where Saari, once again, shows his wonderful pedagogical talent.
Maurice Salles, University of Caen"
12. "This book is definitely of interest to students and researchers from many different areas having to deal with aggregation problems. But even if one knew all of Saari's work already, it is always most entertaining and illuminating to see how he again succeeds in communicating highly technical details in a simple and elegant way. Hence, there is a lot to learn from this book for everyone who cares about whether voters elect what they really want."
Christian Klamler, Mathematical Reviews
13. "Professor Saari's new book is a refreshing and original insight into the most prevalent theme ni the Social Choice literature of the second half of the 20th century: Voting Paradoxes...I strongly recommend the book to those interested in the subject matter."
Perspectives on Politics, Itai Sened, Washington University in St. Louis
