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Can someone tell me which mathematicians are actively working on social choice theory, or point to a place where they may be listed?

edited Jun 20 2011 at 12:36

Tony Huynh

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LaLone 67%

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Wouldn't a more neutral way to phrase this question be "Can someone tell me which mathematicians are actively working on social choice theory?" – Yemon Choi Jun 20 2011 at 0:26

I imagine so... there's home.uchicago.edu/rmyerson/research/schch1.pdf for example. (And I got a book for Christmas written by the mathematician Donald Saari, Chaotic Elections! A Mathematician Looks at Voting, which is about the mathematics of voting patterns.) And I guess that Timothy Gowers is interested too, based on a series of recent blog posts which ends with this: gowers.wordpress.com/2011/05/06/… Have you tried any of these? – Todd Trimble Jun 20 2011 at 0:31

Noga Alon is interested (gave a talk at this at IAS this last fall). – Igor Rivin Jun 20 2011 at 0:43

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"Actively" I dunno, but Yuliy Baryshnikov (now at UIUC) did very nice work in the 1990s explaining that Arrow's theorem is a consequence of the non-contractibility of a certain simplicial complex parametrizing social preferences! (In spirit this carries on work of Chichilnisky who I think was the first person to recognize the homotopic aspect of Arrow's work, and who proved similar theorems in other contexts.) – JSE Jun 20 2011 at 4:03

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I created a social-choice tag. I couldn't find the subject area on the arXiv. The closest two were Social and Information Networks (cs.SI) and Physics and Society (physics.soc-ph). Feel free to rename accordingly. – Tony Huynh Jun 20 2011 at 12:39

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Soumya Sanyal · Answer 1 · 2011-06-20 04:24:11Z UTC

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A. Slinko publishes in social choice theory. (I am presently unable to post this answer as a comment to the OP's question.)

answered Jun 20 2011 at 4:24

Soumya Sanyal

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It's fine to post an answer; I didn't because it's far from an area of expertise for me. – Todd Trimble Jun 20 2011 at 4:55

This is a good answer, worthy of being more than a comment. – Joel Reyes Noche Jun 20 2011 at 7:26

I agree this was a great answer, by looking at his webpage, list of visitors and publications I found several others working in this field. Thanks! – LaLone Jun 20 2011 at 12:13

Daniel Moskovich · Answer 2 · 2011-06-20 12:46:19Z UTC

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The Center for the Study of Rationality at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem studies social choice theory among other things. See their members list for a list of quite a few mathematicians who have worked on social choice theory.

answered Jun 20 2011 at 12:46

Daniel Moskovich

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Rytis · Answer 3 · 2011-06-20 14:58:52Z UTC

Graciela Chichilnisky is one of them (as well as her co-authors). Late Beno Eckmann has a nice chapter in one of his books on social choice theory as a direct application of an average rule in arbitrary spaces. Other people include Luc Lauwers or Shmuel Weinberger. These are examples of mainly algebraic topology at work.

On the other hand, social choice theory is a wide area. It ranges from aggregating preferences to voting and even mechanism design to some extent where tools applied are different.

Mathematicians working on social choice theory

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