A STATISTICAL EQUILIBRIUM APPROACH FOR PREFERENCE AGGREGATION

Abstract

This paper is designed to expose a conceptual framework to analyse the major problem of preference aggregation. The proposal is a theoretical approach based on Statistical Mechanics and Social Choice Theory. From the approach, a specific procedure for preference aggregation is proposed in accordance with two main criteria: optimality and stability. This, in regard to axiomatic demands imposed to the ranking of preferences that is sought. Thus far, the framework differs with respect to most of the
approaches for preference aggregation, such as those involved in voting theory. In the proposal, optimality is incorporated as a minimal-variability restriction, and stability makes use of equilibrium conditions coming from statistical mechanics. For the discussion, a specific measurement procedure for individual-ranking- evaluation is suggested, and the collective choice is the ranking that satisfies the two referred criteria at a better extent